


Tangled

by lymricks



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-27
Updated: 2011-10-27
Packaged: 2017-10-25 00:24:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/269581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lymricks/pseuds/lymricks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, a king made a deal with a demon and a prince with magic wings was stolen by an angel with no wings. Years later, Dean wants a castle, Crowley needs a new coat, Lucifer's a horrible big brother, and Ruby had a dream, but all of this happens because Castiel needs to see the stars. (Tangled AU, with less hair and more wings)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tangled

They say that every story begins with a family. This story is no different.

~

  


~

Once upon a time, there was a queen and a king. They ruled over a kingdom called Heaven. Heaven was a pleasant place to live. The king and queen were good to their angels. The queen was thrilled to announce her pregnancy, and the kingdom rejoiced.

But all was not well. Before she was due to have a child, the queen became ill. When it became clear that she would not survive her illness, the king became desperate, and so he made a deal at a crossroads to save his child.

The crossroads demon gave the king a magic flower, which the king was to feed to his wife. The entire kingdom waited with baited breath. Many of the King and Queen’s subjects waited just outside the castle, their love for their king and queen and the unborn child strong enough to brave the rough ground and cold night air. A child, a boy, was born and survived.

The queen did not.

The king was found dead next to her body.

They say that screams were heard first from the royal bedroom, then in the hallway, and they spread out to the far reaches of the kingdom. They say that people cried for days. They say that this baby, a wonderful prince for their kingdom, was born in sadness and was doomed to live in sadness. They say his eyes were like his mother’s, the most beautiful blue anyone had ever seen. Yet, they say that few could look into his young face without feeling the loss the kingdom had suffered. He was born on a Thursday, but the miracle of his birth was never celebrated.

The child was given to one of the Archangels to be looked after, but on the morning of his second birthday, when Gabriel went into the young prince’s bedroom, the child was no where to be found.

The kingdom despaired. Gabriel, wounded by the loss of the prince, fled Heaven. The angels had suffered too much in the last two years. They lost their king, their queen, their prince, and now the only archangel they believed they could trust. Orders kept coming, and the kingdom kept running, but none of the lesser angels knew who was in charge.

It was a quiet archangel named Anael who began the tradition of lighting a lantern and sending it high into the sky, higher than even the eldest archangels could fly. She hoped that the prince might see it and return home.

Anael disappeared as well, but no matter how many times the angels were told to stop lighting the lanterns, no matter how many times the orders came from the castle, and threats were issued, the lanterns were lit every year.

The angels of Heaven waited for their missing prince to return. They prayed that the lanterns would guide him home.

~

  


~

Castiel had never known a life aside from the one he lived with his brother, Lucifer. They were happy, he believed, because he didn’t think there was any other way to be. Life in the tower was peaceful and quiet. It dragged on, the hours felt long, but he did not complain.

That morning, Castiel woke up stretched out on his stomach. The next day, he was turning twenty-five, the age of maturity for angels. Every birthday, Castiel would watch from the window of his tower as millions of bright stars blinked on in the sky. Castiel privately thought these stars were his, because they appeared no other day of the year. Just on his birthday.

Castiel flexed his wings out behind him, shaking out dust and the occasional ball of fluff that got caught in the feathers.

He rolled over and looked at the chameleon curled up on the pillow next to him. He was the color of Castiel’s wings, which meant he’d been sleeping in the warm, black feathers before Castiel had shaken him out. The small reptile looked reproachfully at Castiel, and shook his head. One foot rubbed at his skull, and Castiel understood the motion for the accusation of attack that it was. He couldn’t help but laugh.

To pacify his small friend, Castiel ran a finger slowly down the chameleon’s back, and he (less black and more blue now) made a soft, pleased sound. Castiel decided this meant he was forgiven, and he smiled conspiratorially at him.

“Today,” Castiel said softly. “Chuck, today I am going to ask Brother.”

Castiel had always dreamed of the day he would be allowed to see the stars in person. In his spare time (he had lots of spare time) Castiel would picture the trees that the stars appeared over, and (bent over maps of the kingdom of Heaven) he would try to pinpoint their exact location. He decided the stars appeared over the Castle he knew existed, but had never seen. This year, on his twenty-fifth birthday, Castiel wanted to see the castle.

But most importantly, he wanted to see the stars.

~

  


~

Dean Winchester wanted a castle. He’d never thought about it before, but at this exact moment, he realized that having a castle would solve all of his problems. He’d have somewhere to put his younger brother Sam, but most importantly, he’d have somewhere to put all the tutors Sam seemed to need. A castle would also have hot water, fresh food, servants, and best of all, a huge master bedroom with a bed big enough to fit sixteen women in, if he wanted (Dean wanted).

He looked to his left and then his right at the hulking men beside him. Dean nodded to each of them with his trademark grin. (He was going for dashing, but Sam kept saying it came across more as impish than any kind of handsome). His partners were ugly and big. They were also siblings. Dean liked working with siblings, because he understood the devotion two brother’s could feel (his thoughts strayed back to Sam, who didn’t have any tutors because they couldn’t afford them, back at Bobby’s. He was waiting for Dean to come home with food and money and books). Dean did not, however, like working with these brothers.

Dean was the best at what he did. Robin Hood? Had nothing on him. He was, everyone knew, the best thief in heaven. He had charm, looks, and a Give ‘Em Hell attitude that continuously kicked the pompous Archangels in the face. That was probably his favorite part of the job.

Dean didn’t think of Heaven as home. He lived (well, left Sam at) Bobby’s house. Bobby had been a good friend of Dean’s dad, and he lived in the neighboring kingdom of Earth. Heaven, with its twisted hierarchy and dead rulers had no real power over Earth, as far as Dean knew. Of course, that didn’t stop the Archangels from trying to take it over. They were rarely successful.

So Dean didn’t feel bad as he looked at the demon brothers behind him. They called themselves Alastair and Azazel, and frankly, they gave Dean the creeps. A job, however, was a job. This job promised to be the end of all jobs. Dean had to admit to himself that the idea of retiring from stealing things was appealing. Only in his wildest dreams did he allow himself to think forward to quiet nights by the fire while Sammy read to him in Latin or something, and Dean made fun of him for being a dork. Dean looked forward to that, but he kept quiet about it. Family would always come first, and the only way Dean knew to support his family was this.

“I want a castle,” he announced to the brothers.

Alastair rolled his eyes, “You do this job and you can have anything you want,” he said. Dean resisted the urge to cringe. Alastair had this sing-songy way of speaking that made Dean’s skin crawl and the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

Dean double-checked the rope tied around his waist. With a slow breath to calm his nerves, he nodded to the brothers. Then he jumped. The rope held him steady as the brothers lowered him through the skylight. Dean looked around the room. He knew that once it had been the throne room. Now, it housed only one thing. Seven angelic guards stood in front of it, facing the only door. None of them were looking at Dean.

Dean’s eyes locked on his target. A brilliant, shining gold crown embedded with clear and blue gemstones. He’d heard rumors that the gems had been made the exact color of the missing prince’s eyes. Those kinds of personal touches, the angels were famous for them. Dean didn’t really care. He was a human. He was from Earth. He needed the cash.

His fingers curled around the crown and he dropped it into his satchel. His eyes roamed slowly over the line of guards, who had no idea what was going on right behind them. One of them sneezed, and Dean couldn’t resist. He smirked and tugged twice on the rope, the universal signal for “pull me up.”

The demon brothers started tugging. The guard sneezed again.

“Man, don’t you just hate hay fever?” Dean asked as he disappeared through the skylight.

In retrospect, that had been a bad idea. It wasn’t the first time Dean’s mouth had gotten him into trouble, but he always got out of it. He figured today was no exception. Dean was still telling Azazel and Alastair about how great the day and the reward would be as the three of them fled over the bridge, the sounds of horses’ hoof beats echoing behind.

When they got into the forest, Dean got separated from the brothers. It easily could have been an accident. The woods that surrounded Heaven’s castle were notoriously tricky to navigate. Even angels had been known to wander off into the woods, never to come home again. Dean was a master thief, though, and the separation was intentional.

Dean ducked into a bush and watched as the brothers ran circles around him. Crouched close to the ground, he listened as they shouted for him. There were bits of branch stuck in his hair by the time he couldn’t hear or see them anymore, and then he got up, ready to creep away from Heaven with his treasure and go back to Earth. He missed Sam more than he was willing to admit to anyone. To admit that kind of affection would be a weakness. Dean had no doubt that Azazel and Alastair would have latched onto any weakness they could.

Better he tricked them before they could trick him.

Dean was feeling confident, and he whistled as he walked. Later, Dean would realize that he had relaxed too soon. Behind him there was the sound of wind, the only warning he got before Heaven’s human army appeared. At the head of the army was the commander, who they called Jehovah’s Witness. He reported back to one of the angels in charge everything he saw, any criminal who passed him was captured. Except Dean.

The commander didn’t scare Dean. His big black horse, Impala, scared Dean.

Dean was running again. Dean was always running. Behind him, the loud hoof beats of Impala and his not-so-frightening rider, Jehovah, echoed through the forest. As Dean ducked behind a tree, he wondered if this was really going to be how everything ended. He wondered how long Sam would wait for him before he came looking. He hoped that Sam never looked, because someone who wanted Dean’s blood would probably find him. If Dean were dead, whoever it was would probably settle for Sam.

Dean couldn’t let that happen. So he ran faster.

It was luck that saved him, but Dean would rather call it a stroke of genius. A branch caught on his shirt, and when he unsnagged the fabric, the branch shot back and knocked Jehovah right off Impala. Dean had ridden horses before, he was an excellent rider. So he swung right on.

“Ok baby,” he said. “Don’t fail me now.” He patted the horse’s shoulder. The horse, apparently unamused, turned around and bit him.

“Ow!” he protested loudly.

But they got away, and Dean had the big black horse to thank for that.

 

~

  


~

“Castiel, Castiel, come fly me up.”

There wasn’t anything threatening about the tone his older brother always used when he arrived at the tower Castiel was kept in for his own safety. But, every time Lucifer called, Castiel felt a strange sensation travel up from the base of his spine all the way to the nape of his next, where small hair there would stand on end. He always had to take a few deep breaths before he walked to the tower window, climbed onto the ledge, and jumped.

There are some questions that go unasked. Maybe because of fear, or politeness, or because the asker knows he will be ridiculed no matter what. Some questions aren’t asked just because. For that last reason, Castiel had never asked his brother why he didn’t have wings. He had never asked Lucifer why when Lucifer stroked Castiel’s wings, the strange tired skin around Lucifer’s eyes faded to normal. Castiel never asked, but sometimes he wondered.

Castiel never touched foot to the ground, just hovered in the air long enough to take Lucifer’s hands and pull him slowly up to the tower, where they spent all their time together. Despite the initial sensation of fear every time he saw Lucifer, Castiel couldn’t help but smile and relax the second his brother’s hands were in his own. This felt like safety, and Castiel did love his brother.

He flew them back up, letting Lucifer step inside the tower before he himself did. Castiel smiled again as he watched Chuck scramble out of view and blend into a dark corner. Castiel had never asked Lucifer if he was allowed to keep a pet like Chuck, but Lucifer had never expressly forbidden it either. Castiel took it for the rare loophole that it was, and never brought Chuck up in his brother’s presence.

His morning had been boring. Chuck was awful at chess, Castiel was tired of reading books, and every time he plucked a few of his own feathers to fasten fake ones for Chuck, the chameleon threw a fit and didn’t talk to him for an hour. So Lucifer’s visits were always a welcome reprieve from the awful, all encompassing boredom.

“I’m making your favorite dinner tonight, Castiel,” Lucifer said. Castiel smiled again and nodded, murmuring his thanks.

“I—“ he started.

“Hazelnut soup, of course,” Lucifer continued, ignoring Castiel.

“Lucifer, I—“

“What is it, Castiel?” Again, Castiel felt a strange shiver move slowly up his spine when his brother’s eyes, wide and hazel and so impenetrable, locked on Castiel’s own.

“I was wondering…”

“Speak up, Castiel! What have I told you about the _mumbling_?”

“I have been charting stars,” Castiel answered hesitantly. Lucifer opened his mouth to respond, but Castiel pressed on. Lucifer let him, probably out of surprise that Castiel hadn’t stopped talking as soon as Lucifer opened his mouth to speak. “And, I’m good at it,” he hesitated, then added a compliment out of habit, “because you taught me, Brother.” Lucifer nodded at this, and Castiel took it as his permission to continue. “As you know, tomorrow I will be of age in the angelic kingdom. Tomorrow is my birthday.”

“Well that can’t be right,” Lucifer finally spoke, a frown creasing his forehead. “No, I specifically remember, we celebrated your birthday last year. I made you hazelnut soup.”

Castiel sighed quietly, and Lucifer raised an eyebrow at the sign of disrespect, so he hurriedly moved on. “I only mean, well, that’s the thing about birthdays, Brother, they come every year. This year, I imagine, as always happens on the day of my birth, several strange stars will rise out from the castle. I made maps, and this is the only place they can come from,” he pointed to a spot on the largest map pinned to his wall. “Brother, I was hoping—please, I would like to see the stars this year.”

The silence that came after Castiel finished asking caused the strange sensation to travel up his spine again. Only this time it didn’t stop. Castiel swallowed hard and looked down at his feet. “Brother,” he said, speaking softly now. “I need to see them, I feel like the stars are _for_ me.”

“You want to go outside?”

The words were simple, but Castiel felt the thunderstorm behind them, the lightning strike. He swallowed and lifted his head. “Yes.”

And maybe because it was unheard of for Castiel to question anything Lucifer asked of him, Lucifer didn’t yell. Instead, he moved forward and rested a hand on Castiel’s shoulder, then slipped a finger under Castiel’s chin. Gently, Lucifer rose Castiel’s head, until their eyes met. He moved the hand to cup Castiel’s cheek instead, his fingers warm and familiar against Castiel’s skin.

“My dear brother,” Lucifer began, his eyes as unreadable as ever. “That course of action is inadvisable.”

“But, brother—”

“Shh,” Lucifer said. “Trust me, pet. Brother knows best.”

Castiel swallowed hard and tried to look away again, but Lucifer’s hand stayed warm on his cheek, forcing him to pay attention.

“I know best, you must trust me. The world is big and frightening, Castiel. You have never been outside. That day will come, but not today and not tomorrow. Something will go wrong, and I could not survive without you.”

Castiel thought that was a strange thing to say, but he nodded his head slowly and swallowed harder. He wanted to speak again. He knew he should argue, but Lucifer wasn’t done.

“There are thugs, and ruffians. Quicksand! Poison ivy. There are men with pointy teeth.”

Suddenly, all the lights in the room went out, and Lucifer’s reassuring presence was gone. Castiel looked wildly around the blackness, frightened.

Castiel shivered, and then, right behind him Lucifer hot breath was on his neck. He was murmuring in Castiel’s ear about all the frightening things in the world. Then, suddenly, Lucifer was gone.

Castiel dropped to the ground and swallowed hard, pressing his knees against his chest and trying to remember how to breathe properly. He didn’t know what it was about his brother that terrified him so thoroughly, but he was terrified. Lucifer probably thought he had scared Castiel into submission, because a few lights blinked back on, and Castiel was pulled to his feet.

Lucifer threw a friendly arm around his little brother’s shoulders. “Skip the bother, stay with Brother,” Lucifer said. He nudged Castiel to a mirror, “Look at your hair and your face. You’re sloppy, a mess. You’re underdressed. Immature. Clumsy.” Castiel did fall, but it was because he was shoved, not because he lacked balance. “And Castiel,” Lucifer finally said, his voice low and dangerous. “No other angel has wings like yours.”

Castiel was self conscious about his wings, and he pulled them in tight against his body, “Angels have white wings. Soft, beautiful white wings. Yours are black and ugly, big and gangly. The people out there, brother, will eat you up alive.”

There was a long pause. Castiel just looked at himself in the mirror.

“I only say this to you, brother, because I love you.”

“I love you more,” Castiel said finally.

A grin stretched across Lucifer’s face. “Don’t forget, brother. I know best,” a beat passed. “I love you most, Castiel.”

Then his brother was gone, out through the window and walking away. “Goodbye, Castiel!” he called. “I will see you tomorrow!”

Castiel closed his eyes and swallowed hard. “I’ll be here.”

~

  


~

 

When Castiel turned back away from the mirror, where he had been examining his wings with a tired desperation—maybe there was a way to hide them?—there was a man looking at him. “You have black wings,” the man said.

Castiel, who had always been told that men were bad, dangerous things, to be avoided at all costs, did the only thing he could do. He grabbed the nearest object—Lucifer’s cast iron skillet—and smacked the stranger over the head with it. The stranger’s face went slack and he slumped to the floor, unconscious.

This particular feat accomplished, he tilted his head to the side and chewed on his lip. The question became what to do next. Chuck was standing next to the strange drawing of a man with pointy teeth that Lucifer had left as a warning. The chameleon curved his paws into a mimicry of teeth. After a moment of internal debate, Castiel reached forward and lifted up the corners of the intruder’s mouth. His teeth were normal.

Castiel was more relieved than he cared to admit. He still, however, had to deal with this stranger. After a brief hesitation, he kicked him in the side. Nothing happened. The stranger on the floor didn’t grunt, or moan, or make any of the noises that Castiel expected to. He just lay there, flopped out on the ground like he was dead.

Castiel blanched. Dead? That was a terrible and terrifying thought. He swallowed hard and looked to Chuck, who shrugged and held up his paws in the universal gesture for “beats me.”

“Lucifer is going to kill me,” Castiel mumbled, kicking the prone form one again. When it (he? Castiel was suddenly unsure if humans used the same pronouns as angels) didn’t move Castiel realized he was going to have to stash the stranger in the closet until he could figure out what to do.

The idea came to him slowly, accidentally, as he fretted about his wings in the mirror once more.

Castiel prided himself on the care he gave to his wings. Lucifer told him over and over that his wings were special, a sign of his abilities. Castiel didn’t know what abilities Lucifer meant, exactly. He did know that he had magic wings. When Lucifer touched them, the strange worn out look of his skin faded away. So that was something, Castiel supposed. He privately hoped that it wasn’t everything. He was a good brother, he rarely questioned Lucifer’s orders or commands. But was that it? There was nothing else?

Well…there was something else. Castiel’s eyes strayed to the maps he had pinned on his wall. Out of habit he began to walk closer to them, but he tripped over the bag the stranger (now in the closet) had apparently brought in with him. There was something shiny in it.

He leaned over and pulled the object out of the bag. Curious now, he turned it over and over in his hands. It was made of metal, gold metal, the color Castiel associated with the stars. He couldn’t help but smile as he ran his fingers over the smooth, untarnished surface.

“What do you think it is?” he asked Chuck. After a moment of contemplation, he walked over to the mirror in the corner of his room. The whole place was simple, Lucifer had never believed in luxuries, but the mirror was big and Castiel had painted on it’s borders. Images and curves that depicted the way the mountains just beyond the line of trees looked at night, right after the sun had set behind them.

Standing in his mirror, Castiel felt something for the first time. The face that looked back at him was not that of the clumsy boy Lucifer described him as. Castiel stood straight and fiddled nervously with the edge of the long tan coat he always wore. It smelled like a home. Not his home, the tower that he lived in every moment of every day, just home. The idea of home, maybe, what home would be like if Castiel wasn’t _here._

He looked down at the circle in his hands again. Aside from being gold, the object was also lined with shining blue stones and opaque, shining white balls. He touched the strange circles and rectangles, then put the thing on his head. He didn’t know what it was, or why he put it on his head. He just had the vague notion that one was supposed to put these kinds of things on his head.

Castiel glanced to Chuck for approval. Chuck tipped his head to one side, and then stuck his tongue out. Frowning, Castiel spun the ring around on his head, so that the largest blue rectangle, surrounded completely by many of the opaque white spheres, was centered just above his forehead. His hair fluffed out under it, not smushed against his face, but elegant. Castiel straightened up and fussed with the lapels of his jacket for a few seconds. The ring on his head made him feel important. He looked at Chuck again, and this time received a thumbs up.

He was still admiring himself in the mirror when he heard it:

“Castiel, Castiel! Come fly me up.”

He froze and then spun around frantically. For a second he was certain he’d be sick or pass out, but the sensation in his spine passed when the ring around his head fell off and landed on the wooden floor with a clang. Castiel scooped it up and threw it back in the satchel, which he stashed in a nearby decorative pot.

He ran to the window just as Lucifer began to get impatient. “ _Castiel_ ” his brother snapped from below, “I have a surprise.” Lucifer spoke without enthusiasm. It was just a statement.

“Me too!” Castiel called, swallowing the fear in his gut and focusing instead on putting as much false cheer into his voice as he could.

“I bet mine is better!”

Castiel grimaced. “I doubt it,” he muttered before diving out of the window. He grabbed Lucifer’s hands—once again his feet never touched the grass below—and pulled his older brother back up into the tower.

“I am making cherry pie!” Lucifer announced. Castiel was unimpressed. He’d never enjoyed pie. It was mushy and dry at the same time; always an unappetizing heap on the chipped china Lucifer served it on.

“Thank you, brother. That will be excellent. I need to speak with you about something—”

“I hope it’s not the stars, Castiel. I thought we had finished that particular conversation.”

“No, of course Brother. I know we spoke about it earlier. I only wish to show you this,” Castiel inched toward the closet, which he had locked from the outside with a chair. “You don’t believe that I am capable of surviving on my own, but—”

“I know you aren’t capable. We are done talking.”

“No, brother—” Castiel started.

“Castiel.”

“If you would only listen—”

“Castiel.”

“Just give me the chance to expla—”

“ _Enough!”_ Lucifer shouted, spinning around and grasping Castiel by the shoulder. “Enough with the lights Castiel!”

Castiel flinched and backed away. Lucifer’s voice dropped to a more normal level, but that was even more terrifying. The gravely and threatening tone held all the promise of the various punishments and humiliations Castiel had endured at the hands of his brother over the years. He touched a scar on his collarbone instinctively as Lucifer continued to speak. “You are not leaving this tower, _ever_. The world is a big, terrifying place. People die in the world, Castiel. _Angels_ die in the world,” and if Castiel heard a real threat in the next thing Lucifer said, well he was probably imagining it.

Castiel stayed where he was: pressed against the closet door. He couldn’t meet his brother’s gaze, couldn’t look up. He stared at the floor for a few seconds before he finally, finally lifted his eyes. That was an order Lucifer had just given. Castiel did not ignore orders. He swallowed hard and nodded once, forcing his eyes to lock on Lucifer’s steely hazel gaze. He pulled his hand away from the closet door.

“Castiel,” Lucifer said, dropping into a chair and holding a hand out. “Castiel, I don’t enjoy being the bad guy. I don’t like to raise my voice at you. I want to speak with you, just speak with you. You know how I hate to yell.

I do not lie to you, Castiel, contrary to what you may think. I am not in the business of lying to people.”

Slowly, Castiel walked forward, sitting on the floor next to Lucifer’s chair. His brother ran a gentle hand through the mussy brown hair. Castiel suppressed a shiver and kept looking down.

The two brothers were quiet for a while. The silence wasn’t exactly companionable, but it was familiar. Castiel would take what he could get.

“All I wanted to say,” Castiel said quietly after several minutes had passed. “Is that I know what I want for my birthday.”

Lucifer’s hand stilled in Castiel’s hair. “And what, little brother, is that?”

“The white paint you brought me when I turned ten,” Castiel whispered. “From the shells on the beach? The one you told me about, it…I just thought it would be a better gift…than stars.”

Castiel could feel his brother’s quiet gaze roaming over his shoulders. He swallowed hard and waited to be shot down, told know, or any of the various other reactions Lucifer had any time Castiel asked him for something. Instead he was met with silence, and then, “All right, Castiel.”

Castiel’s head shot up and he offered Lucifer a tired smile. He helped his brother to pack and grabbed the long velvet cloak Lucifer wore to protect himself from bad weather. “The journey will take three days,” Lucifer reminded him. “I will be back in three days time. Are you sure you’ll be all right on your own?”

The hesitance in Lucifer’s voice was palpable. Castiel felt ashamed under his brother’s scrutiny; he didn’t mean to cause Lucifer so much worry. “Yes,” Castiel answered. “It is only three days.”

Lucifer nodded and stepped forward, embracing Castiel quickly. “I love you very much, little brother,” he said.

Castiel wrapped his arms around Lucifer and flew him out the window, setting him on the ground. “I love you more,” he whispered into Lucifer’s shoulder.

~

  


~

When Dean woke up, it was because something wet and slimy was pressing into his ear. “What the hell—” he started, reaching a hand up to rub his aching head. Or, trying to reach a hand up. He was tied up. Dean felt a moment of panic—had the brother’s caught him? Where was he? Was Sam safe?

But then he remembered the strange blue eyes and the feeling of a cast iron skillet hitting his head. As he turned his head slowly around the room he spotted those eyes again, attached to a body that was lurking in the corner. He tugged at his bindings, but didn’t move his eyes away from the shadowy form with blue eyes who was lurking in the corner.

“Struggling…” the voice started, then cracked. Dean heard the shadowed figure clear his throat before starting again. “Struggling won’t help you.”

The voice was low and gravelly, not what he’d expected from a figure hiding in the corner. Dean started, peering a little more intently into the shadows. After a few seconds, the figure emerged from behind the pole he was hiding in.

“I know why you’re here,” the man with the blue eyes said. No, not man; he was an angel. Dean stared, wide eyed, at the huge black wings. “Who are you?” the angel continued. “How did you find me?”

Dean smirked, his eyes trailing slowly up and down the angel’s body. “I don’t know who you are, or how I found you,” he started. “But can I just ask—how’s it going?” this was said with his best smirk. Dean knew he had nothing on Sam’s puppy eyes, but he figured a good, lady-killing (angel-killing?) grin would do just about the same. He guessed the angel with the big black wings probably didn’t get out much.

The angel looked distinctly unimpressed, maybe even a little confused. So, that answered that question. The angel didn’t get out much. Or ever, actually.

“Look, my name’s Dean,” he said, trying a new tactic. “I don’t wanna be here, you don’t want me here. So why don’t you let me go, give me my sat—” he froze. “Hey, Wings,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “Where’s my satchel?”

“I hid it,” and didn’t angel boy sound smug, “You’re never going to find it.”

It was Dean’s turn to look unimpressed. “Let me guess,” he said, casting another glance around the room, “It’s in that pot.”

Dean’s father had been a thief just the same as Dean was. Dean had grown up in this life, and you didn’t grow up a thief without picking up a few skills. He could hunt, track, kill, and he knew where people hid things. The tower he was in was sparse and clean. There wasn’t anywhere else the angel could have hidden his satchel.

The look of horror on the angel’s stupid face was hilarious—until he hit Dean with the skillet again.

Dean woke up a few minutes later to the same unpleasant sensation in his ear. He turned his head fast and this time found the culprit. A small, green lizard was sticking its tongue out and looking unhappy. “What is this place? Is that a lizard? Who _are_ you?” Dean snapped, “Fucking snow white? Do you sing too?”

The figure just stared at him then looked around slowly. “I…am an angel,” he hesitated, then said with more certainty, “An angel with black wings.”

Dean snorted. “Yeah, I noticed, buddy. Thanks for the PSA.” He looked at the angel again. He looked young for an angel, and underneath the steely determination and clear lack of knowledge about Snow White and her dwarfs was some very real fear. He could use that to his advantage, maybe. “Look, kid,” he started.

“No!” the angel shouted, Dean blinked. “What do you want with my wings? Why are you in my tower?”

“I don’t want anything to _do_ with your freaky-ass wings!” Dean shouted back. He felt gratified when the angel shut up quickly. “I saw a tower, I climbed it. It happens.”

“I’m Castiel,” the angel said finally. Dean didn’t miss the way the ang—Castiel—looked interested now. “I am prepared to offer you a deal.”

Castiel walked across the room, sticking one huge black wing out to turn Dean’s chair to the opposite wall. “Do you know what these are?” he asked, pointing to a painting on the wall.

Dean squinted at the image for a second before nodding. “Yeah,” he said. “The lanterns the angels do for the prince?”

Castiel’s head tilted to the side, “I knew they weren’t stars,” he whispered, more to the lizard/thing on his shoulder than to Dean. Dean was officially convinced he was meeting the angelic Snow White. Who talked to lizards?

“Yes. Well, if you be my guide to these lanterns, take me there, and then bring me home safely,” Castiel continued, “Then, and only then will I give you back your satchel and the ring of blue and white inside, and I will let you go.”

“No, not happening,” Dean announced, tugging at the rope binding his wrists again. “Heaven and I aren’t exactly simpatico right now. So. No can do, sorry.”

“Listen to me, _Dean_. You are here for a reason. Something brought you to me. Fate, Destiny, what have you. So I have made the decision to trust you—”

“A horrible decision—”

“So trust _me_ , Dean, you can tear this tower apart, but you do not have a chance of finding your satchel without me.”

Dean was surprised by the sense of finality in Castiel’s words. There was nothing frightened or timid about his tone. Castiel spoke with the thunder Dean had only heard come from the mouths of Archangels and noble angels. He frowned for a second, studying Castiel, but he was mostly frowning because he was busy freeing one of his hands. Then he reached out and grabbed Castiel’s tie, pulling him down close enough that he could feel Castiel’s breath on his face.

“I didn’t want to have to do this,” Dean said, “but you leave me no choice.”

He didn’t have puppy eyes like his younger brother, but he had what he liked to call “the smolder” and what Sam liked to call the “idjit gaze” (he was going through a phase where he thought Bobby and anything Bobby said was awesome. Dean was losing patience with this particular phase).

He locked his eyes on Castiel’s and gave him the best “come hither” gaze Dean had. Then he waited.

And waited.

…and waited.

Castiel narrowed his eyes and pulled back from Dean quickly, smacking at Dean’s hands with the tips of his wings and looking flustered.

“This usually works,” Dean grumbled, “I’m having an off day.” Under Castiel’s continued stare, a stare that made Dean feel like his soul was being searched and found somehow lacking, he finally relented. “Ok, ok, you got me,” he said, holding up his hand. “I’ll take you to see the lights.”

~~~

Castiel was less excited about seeing the lights all of the sudden. He was hovering, which was hard and tired his wings out, about a foot above the grass. He looked at Dean for a second, trying his hardest to gather his resolve. Dean was watching him with a bemused expression. The angel looked stupid, floating there above the ground, clutching that horrible, stupid skillet in his white knuckled hands.

“We can always turn back, I won’t tell anybody.”

Castiel shook his head quickly and took a deep breath. The change in him was visible. One second he was a hovering, shrimpy, barely-of-age angel. The next he was standing tall and proud. Castiel could feel Dean’s eyes on him, but he figured his new friend was more suspicious than anything else, so he kept his posture straight and tall.

When Dean didn’t say anything, Castiel inclined his head. “Lead the way.”

Dean visibly gathered himself, and probably his wits too, before starting out in the direction of the hanging vines. Castiel had seen Lucifer leave through those vines a thousand times—maybe a million. But now, standing before them, he hesitated.

Castiel had never disobeyed.

Lucifer had called it falling, once. He said that if Castiel ever left the tower he would fall from grace and be lost to his older brother forever. Unbidden, that memory returned to Castiel. He couldn’t have been older than one hundred and fifty at the time. With his eyes closed, Castiel could feel his brother’s heavy hand on his then bony shoulder. The grip that was just tight enough to hurt, holding Castiel half out the window and half in. He remembered watching black feathers float down to the grass below, coming loose from Castiel’s wings as Lucifer shook them.

Even now he remembered Lucifer’s anger, the way his eyes flashed and his skin looked like it was peeling off around his temples. Castiel had felt Lucifer’s breath, hot as his brother’s skin, on his face.

“Feathers?” The nickname was taunting, but there was a hesitant tone to Dean’s voice. Castiel opened his eyes and realized his hands were shaking.

“This is foolish,” he said to himself, looking at the vines. “Lucifer has been angry with me many times before. There is no reason to fear him now. I am doing this for myself. I am doing something for someone who isn’t Lucifer. I cannot be afraid.”

Again, the steely air of resolve settled over Castiel, and he brushed past Dean and walked through the vines.

~

  


~

 

The next two hours of Dean Winchester’s life went something like this:

“I am glad to spread my wings” (Castiel actually did spread his wings out at that point, and caught those awkward black feathers in a thorny bush).

“This is a mistake, an error in judgment” (Castiel sucked his wings in tight to his body and looked up at the sky).

“The right choice, Lucifer would be proud of me for making the right choice. He probably wishes me to learn to decide things for myself” (Castiel smiled brightly at Dean, a strange blue eyed smile that had Dean blushing and looking away).

“No. Why did I do this? I have made a horrible choice. Lucifer always told me the dangers of free will, of making choices. Now I have made a terrible one” (The wings folded around Castiel’s shoulders now, and he stared so intently on the ground that Dean started to worry Castiel was going to fall on his face).

“I can’t wait up there forever! There is so much for me to see on this world. There are bad things, of course, but not all bad. There is love! There is valour. People who fight for each other” (Castiel ran a hand through his already mussed hair and flicked a wing out to stop a branch from snapping back into Dean’s face. Dean smiled at him).

“I am an abomination!” (Castiel dropped down on the roots of a tree and buried his head in his hands).

“Ok, hold on a second, man,” Dean said, finally stopping and looking at the angel in surprise. “That’s kind of strong language there.”

Castiel didn’t say anything and Dean heaved a sigh. “Look, Feathers,” he said, dropping down on the tree roots next to Castiel. “I don’t know your bro, but I’m a big brother too. I love Sammy just as much as I’m sure Lucifer,” what a weird name, “Loves you. I get worried about him when he’s off on his own or when I’m away from him, but I’m proud of him when he makes smart choices and thinks for himself.”

Dean wasn’t actually sure why he was saying this, because he didn’t want to haul an angel who had been in a tower with his apparently psychotic older brother (abomination, seriously?) all over Heaven and Earth, but he didn’t like seeing Castiel beat up on himself so much. No one should feel bad about himself, at least not to that extent.

That said, Dean was still going to try and talk the kid out of coming with him. “Look, I know this great place called the Roadhouse. It’s the…” he searched for a Sammy-Word “The epitome of life out here. If you can handle that, you can handle anything.”

~

  


~

The Roadhouse looked inviting. Castiel’s eyes trailed over the small, but comfortable looking building and the sign with a picture of a duck on it. He didn’t understand the signifigance of the bird, but the place looked nice enough. Castiel relaxed marginally and shot a smile at Dean who smiled back for a second then looked surprisingly apologetic. It was just a quick flash in his eyes, but Castiel’s brow creased in confusion. He kept staring at Dean, but Dean ducked his head and wouldn’t meet Castiel’s gaze.

Dean stepped in front of Castiel and lead him into the Roadhouse. Inside it was much less inviting. What had appeared to be well loved dents and scraps from years of being open turned out to be the reactions of the drunk and violent men inside. At least, they looked drunk and violent to Castiel. He was frightened, but squared his shoulders.

 

For a few seconds, the pair went unnoticed. Castiel used the time to get more of a feel for the surroundings. The bar, for it was apparently a drinking establishment, was dark and a little musky, but the building and decorations themselves weren’t necessarily threatening. The place actually did look well loved. Someone clearly cared about the establishment. The patrons were what made Castiel feel threatened. And rightly so, he thought.

He was the only angel in the place.

This ordinarily would have been enough to make any angel nervous. Men were notoriously capricious; even Castiel, who had lived his life in exile, understood the danger of men. There was an animosity between the two species. The stories and history books he read often blamed the angels. Their lofty attitude and better-than-thou reaction to men had apparently lead the men to view the entire angelic species with disdain. According to the books, mankind had once looked up to angels.

Once upon a time they had lived in peace, with angels using their wings and occasionally supernatural abilities to aid the human race when asked. The process of asking had been called “praying.” That was all Castiel knew about it though. According to the histories, something horrific had happened and the men had turned against the angels. This had divided the kingdom of Paradise into three Kingdoms. Heaven, Earth, and Hell. Castiel knew from Lucifer’s stories that the criminals and horrible people from Heaven and Earth went to the Kingdom of Hell.

Lucifer promised Castiel that those who went into Hell never came back out.

But here in the Roadhouse, Castiel was nervous of the bias being acted out against him. He was strong and he could fly. He was confident he could hold his own in a fight. He certainly wouldn’t go down weak and crying, yet he was hesitant to act against men. He didn’t want to be another addition to the list of grievances men had against angels. It was his first day out of the castle; he didn’t want it to end that horribly.

Castiel noticed the sign as soon as one of the men in the corner noticed Dean.

It was a piece of white paper, muddy and a little torn at the edges, tacked to the wall next to the door. The picture wasn’t great, they had gotten Dean’s nose wrong. It was shaped oddly and crooked, and looked nothing like the nose on Dean’s actual face. Privately, Castiel considered Dean’s face to be a work of art. Dean was the first man Castiel had ever encountered, he had wondered if they were all that beautiful.

Taking in the rest of the room, Castiel concluded that most men were ugly. Dean was exceptionally beautiful.

He reminded himself to tell Dean about that later.

The problem was, the sign on the door said _Wanted_ above it and a large number under it. Castiel understood this to mean that there was a reward for Dean’s capture. He remembered that Dean said he and Heaven weren’t “simpatico” at the moment. Castiel wondered if it had something to do with the mysterious satchel.

“Oh no,” Dean grumbled. “The sons of bitches always get my damn nose wrong.”

“So it is you then,” came a voice from off to the side. The accent and annunciation was different from Dean’s. “Dean Winchester. The man with a price on his head. What a welcome surprise.”

Dean turned sharply and narrowed his eyes at the corner. “Crowley,” he said lowly. “Good to see you too, man.”

Castiel watched in fascination as Dean backed away slowly from the man in the corner, who was apparently called Crowley. It was a suitable name for the man, because although he looked collected and almost elite when he stepped out from the shadows, Castiel knew this man crawled in the dirt with the evil things. Yet, there was something so enchanting about him.

“We have all been looking for you, Dean. It’s been such a tiring search. Did you know that I ripped my _favorite_ jacket scrambling after you this morning? That was a mistake, to make yourself known when you steal something so valuable.”

Dean looked to the side, his jaw set.

“And what have we here? Is this a present for us? Did you think that if you brought us an _angel_ we would let you go? Wander off into the shadows and disappear as you are so want to?”

“What?” Castiel whispered, looking at Dean with wide eyes.

“I’m not done speaking,” Crowley said, but the words were amiable. An amiableness that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Crowley adjusted his tie, “Now then, where was I. Oh, that’s right. The offering is quite good Dean, and we’ll take it. Unfortunately, we’re going to have to take you too.”

“Ok, now wait just a minute,” Dean held his hands up in a placating gesture. “I get that you guys are pissed, but come on, lets work something out here.”

“Let me think about it. Hm, no. Nothing to work out. Grab ‘em, boys,” Crowley snapped his fingers.

“No, hey, wait, stop!” Dean said, pushing at the hands grabbing him until he couldn’t push anymore, his hands secured behind his back. Castiel flinched away from the hands that grabbed at him, and yelped in protest and panic when someone grabbed at his wings. “Crowley! Let the angel go, man. He’s not a peace offering. I’ll come quietly, just let the damn angel go.”

“I thought I said we weren’t working anything out, darling,” Crowley said. “He’s a fine specimin of an angel and, oh my look at those wings. I’ve never seen wings like that before.”

Castiel flinched when Crowley reached out and ran his hands slowly down the feathers, tugging at them hard enough to hurt, but not hard enough to pull them out.

“Stop!” he yelled, putting as much of Lucifer’s authority into his voice as he could. To his surprise, the men holding him let go, and Castiel pushed Crowley back hard with one of his wings. “You _cannot_ have this man today. I have been waiting _twenty. five. years_. to see the lights. I will not be able to see them without him. You may not take him.” The authority in his voice dropped down a little as he looked at Crowley again. “It’s my only dream. Haven’t you ever had a dream?”

Crowley opened his mouth to respond, Castiel assumed, wittily and in a way that would be detrimental to his and Dean’s wellbeing. He didn’t get to say anything, however, because a gunshot rang out.

“Well give the angel a hand,” called a smooth and decidedly feminine voice. She spoke ruggedly and her tone left no question as to who was actually calling the shots here. “I don’t mean that literally, Crowley, get your grimy paws off of him. Yes, they’re grimy, I don’t care how expensive the foamy wash you put on them is. Back off from those boys.”

Castiel squinted through the grime as a woman and a girl stepped out from behind the bar. The woman walked through the crowd, and the men parted quickly for her.

“Name’s Ellen,” she said, holding out a hand to Castiel, “This is my daughter, Jo. I’m sorry about the fuss, but it appears these boys,” she looked over her shoulder and everyone in the bar had the good grace to look cowed, “don’t know how to mind their manners. You’ll have to pardon them; they still have a lot of growing up to do.

There ain’t a single body in this room that hasn’t broken the law,” she reminded everyone as she let go of Castiel’s hand, “ ‘Cept maybe this angel right here. So we aren’t going to start turning each other in, you got that? If you have any plans to turn fugitives in then you best get in line and I’ll be calling Jehovah to come get you lot right away. This place could use a little extra funding.”

The room was quiet, and Ellen nodded her head. “Thought so,” she said. She smiled at Castiel, “Right this way, darling. Let’s get you boys a drink. Dean Winchester, you are in so much trouble I ought to smack you right down to the floor and tie you up there until they find you.”

“Yes ma’am,” Dean said. Castiel noted with some amusement that this was the first time he had ever seen Dean looked even a little bit ashamed. Ellen lead them over to a quiet booth near the bar, presumably so she could keep an eye on them, and her daughter—Jo, Ellen had said—came over.

“Howdy boys,” Jo said, tipping an imaginary hat at them. “Mom’s going to kill you for causing that much trouble. You were in here for maybe five minutes, Winchester.”

Her words were technically harsh, but Castiel realized that she and Dean must know each other well, because she spoke with a smile. Dean smiled right back at her. Castiel watched them interact with fascination. He had never known anyone who wasn’t Lucifer, so being this close to someone outside of his family was something that he never even thought about.

“Good to see you too, Jo,” Dean griped. She dropped down in the seat next to him, and he ruffled her hair until she made several protesting noises and smacked his arm.

Jo pushed her hair out of her face and turned to look at Castiel, offering him a slightly suspicious smile. “What you said back there,” she started, “Everybody in this place has a dream. Most of them are here because they don’t have a chance.” She pointed to Crowley, “he used to want to be a concert pianist for the royal family. When the prince disappeared, well, that went down the drain real quick. And over there, that’s Meg. She just wanted to be a teacher, but she didn’t have the funds for school. And right there, that’s Ruby. She wanted to fall in love and make her father proud. Well, her father beat her and so did the guy she fell for, so now she’s hard as nails. You don’t wanna tangle with Ruby.”

Castiel looked at her, “And you?” he asked quietly. “What is your dream?”

“I wanted to protect Earth like my daddy did, like Dean’s daddy did. Like Dean did, before he decided stealing made more money,” she fell quiet and looked down at her hands on the table. “But that’s never gonna happen either.”

It was sad, Castiel realized, all of these people had such potential. They had all wanted something, but they couldn’t get it anymore. He frowned and looked down at his hands as well. But then Jo reached across the table and slid her warm hand over Castiel’s squeezing once. “But you? Your dream can come true. We’re going to make that happen for you—” she paused, looking at him.

“Castiel,” he supplied.

“Castiel. That’s different, I like it,” she rewarded him with a bright smile. “We’re going to make your dream come true, Castiel. Any way we can.”

Castiel looked at Dean then, Dean who had been suspiciously quiet. “Dean?” he asked. When the thief looked at Castiel, his eyes were blanketed. “Dean?” he pressed, a frown creasing his forhead.

“Yeah. I got a dream. You go right back to that stupid tower you fell out of.” Dean jumped up out of the booth and stalked away. Castiel followed Dean with his eyes until he disappeared into the crowd. He glanced at Jo and shrugged. She laughed sympathetically and brought him something to drink called “whiskey.”

~

  


~

Dean was across the bar and glaring moodily out the window when he saw it. There in the trees was the figure of a man. For a second Dean thought it was an angel. The shadowy figure carried himself like the angels carried themselves. The same confident, self righteous posture. But on a closer inspection, Dean realized that the man didn’t have any wings.

Dean watched as the man made a strange motion. He was about to point it out to someone else in the Roadhouse, but then someone was grabbing his shoulder and shoving him back toward the back door.

“The guards are here, someone called them,” Jo explained as she shoved the stupid angel at him. He bumped into Dean, and Dean shoved him right back off as hard as he could. When Castiel’s wing was crushed against a pole, Dean pretended he didn’t feel bad at all. He just looked at Jo. She glared at him, but he knew he was forgiven when she pushed her hair out of her face. That was Jo’s getting down to business motion. “We’ll get you two out through the hatch in the back. Ash and Mom’ll be there, hurry!”

Dean ran toward the door to the kitchen without waiting to see if Castiel was behind him. He only figured out that Castiel was when Dean heard him breathing. They shuffled into the tight hallway. Dean had been this way a thousand times since he was a kid, when things were simpler and Ellen was more “Aunt Ellen” than anything else.

“You boys all set?” Ellen asked, planting herself between Dean, Castiel, and the door. She looked as ready for a fight as anyone. “Dean, you take care of this one. Good to meet you, Castiel. I don’t often meet an angel I like.” She turned to Dean and grabbed him in a quick hug, “Don’t be a stranger, Dean. You got family here too.”

As moody as he was, as angry as he was acting, Ellen had always known how to get past Dean’s barricades. He offered her a tired smile before he jumped into the hatch, pulling Castiel down with him.

The angel’s breathing picked up. “Oh,” he said softly. Dean turned around and peered at Castiel through the darkness.

“Oh?” he echoed.

“I don’t like small places.”

Dean groaned, “Of course you don’t,” and because it had always worked with Sam,he tried to get Castiel to talk about it. “Why not?”

“When I was twelve I decided that I didn’t want to be in the tower anymore,” Castiel said, “Lucifer granted my request. I wasn’t in the tower. I was under it for two weeks.”

Dean stumbled in surprise. “Your older brother locked you in the basement?”

“It was more of a crawlspace, I believe,” Castiel answered. He didn’t sound sad or like he was asking for pity, it sounded like Castiel was listing a fact instead. Dean frowned, he didn’t have anything to add to the conversation, and a kind of awkward silence settled over the pair of them.

“I’m sorry,” Dean said finally. “That’s—”

“Dean.” Castiel’s voice was sharp. “ _Dean_!”

The rocks that lined the floor around their feet cracked and jumped and the air around them began to rumble. Dean’s eyes shot to the tunnel, way back down the way they’d come. He could just make out the bobbing light of a torch, going brighter as the guards of the kingdom approached. He didn’t blame Ellen or Jo for not being able to stop them, it would have been stupid. Ellen had gotten them far enough away to give them a chance in Hell.

Dean didn’t think of himself as good at a lot of things, but he was good at taking chances in Hell and running with them. He slipped an arm around behind Castiel, shoving the angel forward. “Move,” he barked, planting himself between Castiel and the approaching army.

Castiel gathered his wings as best he could, although Dean thought they still looked awkward. Then they ran as fast as they could, their footsteps echoing off the tunnel walls. In front of Dean, Castiel’s shoulders were still tight, and his wingers fluttered in what came across to Dean as agitation.

This was his fault, he realized suddenly. Castiel was in this mess because Dean couldn’t hold up his end of a bargain. He’d just wanted to go and collect his money, then run home to Sam and enjoy himself. Instead, he was running down a tunnel, fleeing from the fiercest warriors of Heaven, and putting the only angel he’d ever seen with black wings in serious danger.

Dean wondered what Heaven would do with Castiel if they caught him. Sam would have known. Angels, as far as Dean knew, had never treated differences with kindness. This black winged angel would be ridiculed, hated—maybe even killed.

Dean was a lot of bad things, but he wasn’t a murder, at least not yet.

He promised himself that he’d get Castiel out of this alive.

~

  


~

Castiel could hear the footsteps of men coming down the hall and he opened his mouth to warn Dean. It turned out, however, that the human had good enough hearing to catch on. Dean stepped to the side and shoved Castiel forward, “Move!” he said again. Castiel turned to look at Dean.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Right now? Running from the stupid sons of bitches who want to arrest me and who’ll probably do all sorts of freaky ass things to your weird colored wings.”

Castiel frowned and started moving again. The footsteps were getting closer. But Dean didn’t move, so Castiel reached around and grabbed Dean’s hand before yanking him along. He hated small spaces, and was relieved to see the end coming closer. “Come on, Dean!” he yelled, pulling harder on the man behind him, who was struggling. They had to get away, Castiel had to see the stars, he had to know what they were for.

They barely made it out of the tunnel without either of them being poked with a sword, but as Castiel entered the clearing, he realized they had bigger problems. “Dean?” he said, stepping closer to the man. “Who’s that?”

He pointed to a pair of demons walking out of the shadows from the other side of the clearing. They bumped shoulders when they walked, as brothers sometimes do.

“That’s uh, that’s Alistair and Azazel,” Dean said. “They don’t like me.”

“And that?” Castiel pointed to the captain of the guards who was walking next to a big black horse. Castiel was pleased to note it looked like the horse was trying to bite the captain.

“Captain Jehovah and Impala,” Dean explained, “They don’t like me either.”

“Who’s _that_!”

“Cas,” Dean snapped, “Let’s just assume for the moment that everybody here _doesn’t_ like me!”

Castiel ran a hand through his hair and shoved the cast iron skillet, which he’d been carrying since he first hit Dean with it, against Dean’s chest. “Hold this,” he said.

Then, Castiel spread his wings and flew.

~

  


~

Dean’s first thought was _wow_.

One second, Castiel was standing next to him looking frightened and edgy, and the next he was swooping into the air, his huge black wings casting most of the clearing into shadow. For just a moment, everybody stopped and stared at the angel as he flew up, higher and higher until he landed on the edge of one of the cliffs bordering the clearing.

Dean’s second thought was _fuck_.

When he stopped staring at Castiel in awe long enough to realize that, hey, the angel had just abandoned him to certain death and/or torture. He could see Crowley creeping closer to him now. Maybe the demon wouldn’t get his angel, but he’d sure as hell get Dean. That would probably be enough, Dean realized. Crowley always had held a strange grudge against him.

But Jehovah beat him to it. Dean heard the laugh and the chink of a sword being pulled from its hilt. He turned and found Jehovah’s blade pressed right against his neck. “I’ve waited a long time for this, Winchester,” the man said. “I’ve waited to bring you back to my masters. Do you know how long and hard the angels have been searching for you?”

“Look, man,” Dean said, “If this is about the crown—”

“It’s not. We just want you,” Jehovah promised.

Dean held up his hands in a pacifying gesture, and then realized he had a cast iron skillet in one of them. Jehovah dove, his blade moving from Dean’s throat to Dean’s stomach. For an instant, Dean thought that this was how he was going to die. Then his reflexes kicked in, and he smashed Jehovah over the head with the frying pan, and ran to the left.

Jehovah’s soldiers kept coming at him, but they were less frightening without their fearless leader, and Dean deftly smacked each one down to the ground. When the wave of men stopped and he was left standing in the middle of a pile of unconscious bodies, he bent down, leaning his hands on his knees. “Holy crap,” he said, casting the frying pan an appreciative glance, “I have got to get one of these things.”

Just as he was about to relax, he heard Crowley’s voice. Dean stood up and gripped the pan tighter, bracing himself for the fight to come, but it didn’t come. Instead, the huge black horse jumped in front of him, one of the fallen soldiers swords clutched in her teeth.

“Hey now,” Dean said, backing away as the horse advanced on him, swinging the sword. He could tell her heart wasn’t in it, which surprised him. Probably not as much as it should have, but, “I am fighting a sword-wielding horse with a frying pan, look Impala, I just want you to know this is one of the weirdest things I’ve ever done.”

And then the horse, the stupid animal who Dean had clearly been mistaken about taking it easy on him, advanced a little more and Dean felt the ground below his feet disappear as he plummeted off the edge of the clearing straight toward the river below.

For the second time that day, Dean Winchester prepared to die.

And for the second time that day, he didn’t.

Instead of icy water or sharp rocks, he felt two warm arms and then an even warmer chest, and the strangest sensation of air being pushed all around his body. Slowly, he opened his eyes.

“Holy crap,” he said, because there isn’t much else to say when the only angel in the Universe with big, black wings saves you from certain death. It was only a brief moment of reprieve though, “Cas! Look out!”

Below, Azazel and Alistair were taking their turn at the pair of escaping fugitives. They’d loaded bows and arrows and were shooting them high into the sky, aiming for the very visible target of either one of Castiel’s huge wings. Castiel had other plans than dying, apparently, because he swooped and dove and did the sort of twists and turns that made Dean’s stomach lurch. He was suddenly aware of exactly how much he hated flying, so he squeezed his eyes shut as tight as he could, and let the angel carry him away.

A few minutes later, Dean felt Castiel’s body give a small shudder, and then they were landing on the ground. Castiel set Dean down in front of him, and Dean turned his back on the angel to look at their surroundings. “Cas, man,” he said, “Good sense of direction.” Dean dropped to his knees and scooped some water from a lazy stream into his hands. He scrubbed his face with it, taking the opportunity to calm down.

He frowned when he realized he had both hands free. “Aw shit,” he said. “I’m sorry, Cas, I lost—” he turned around and stopped.

Castiel was on his knees in the dirt right behind the place where he’d set Dean down. Dean could see his shoulders shaking, and the way that Castiel’s wings were tucked so tightly against his body spelt nothing but trouble.

“Cas?” Dean said softly, walking toward the angel. He got closer and reached one hand out, pressing it against a warm shoulder. “Cas? What’s wrong man?”

“Nothing, I am fine,” Castiel said, his voice even more gravelly than it had been before.

“Dude, there’s nothing fine about you,” Dean insisted. He pushed on Castiel’s shoulder, trying to get the angel to unwrap his wings. “C’mon dude, you’re like a giant cereal box right now, let me see the prize inside,” Dean said, his voice gentle. His joke fell on uncomprehending ears, Castiel just looked at him with blank and hazy blue eyes.

“I—” Castiel started, then stopped. Dean watched the angel struggle with himself for a second before the huge black wings swept away from Castiel’s body, and revealed an arrow embedded alarmingly deep in Castiel’s stomach.

“Shit, ok, shit,” Dean said, dropping to his knees. “I’m gonna need you to relax, Cas,” he added. He peered around behind the angel, and swallowed hard when he saw the tip of the arrow poking out through Castiel’s shirt. “This isn’t so bad, you’re going to be fine, it’s going to be fine.”

“Pull it out,” Castiel said through gritted teeth.

“What? No way, Cas, I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to leave it in and get you to a doctor or something.”

“Pull it out,” Castiel repeated. “I can heal, just, not while it’s in me. The arrow has Enochian sigils on it, I can’t heal around it.”

“But that would mean it was designed by an angel, Cas. The demons—those two were demons—don’t have that kind of technology.”

“I don’t care, Dean. Just pull it out. My brother taught me this when he was wounded once. We can’t pull it out ourselves, it has to be someone else. It has to be you.”

“Cas, I—”

“Dean, just pull it out.”

Dean heard the note of urgency, and also the pain in Castiel’s voice. He’d never been good with the medical stuff. He could stitch wounds, sure, and clean wounds, but Sammy had always been in charge of the more in depth problems, like arrow wounds. But, if what Castiel was saying was right then all Dean had to do was yank the thing right out of the angel. So he took a deep breath, gripped Castiel’s shoulder, and yanked.

Castiel didn’t scream. He made a soft, pained noise, then looked up at Dean. “Thank you,” he said seriously, and then his eyes rolled back and he slumped forward into Dean’s arms.

~~~

When Castiel woke up, his head was on something soft and warm, and there was a bear above him.

No, that wasn’t right. He tried to open his eyes, but found that they were too heavy. So he focused his senses. It definitely wasn’t a bear making those noises, but it had to be something big and dangerous. He took a deep breath and forced his eyes open. To his surprise, it was dark out except for the warm glow of a fire, and his head was on Dean’s lap. And it was Dean making the deep, growling noises, not a bear. Castiel smiled. Dean was snoring.

He slid a cautious hand down his stomach, poking and prodding at the skin to see if the wound had healed. It had. He exhaled slowly. Although Lucifer had been adamant that angel’s bodies could heal from wounds as long as there wasn’t anything Enochian stuck in them, Castiel hadn’t been sure. He could have died right here in the grass without ever seeing the stars, but Dean hadn’t let him.

Castiel pressed his nose against Dean’s thigh for a second, then tilted his head to look up at the man who had saved his life today. He smiled thoughtfully, watching the way Dean’s face looked much more relaxed and childlike in sleep. When Castiel looked at Dean, he always saw a man who had seen too much. Now he saw the tenderness of youth that had been chased away from Dean’s face however many years ago. Castiel remembered something the girl from the Roadhouse had said, Jo. She’d said “like Dean used to, before he decided stealing things made better money.”

Dean had saved people, or at least protected them once. Castiel had read stories about people like that, although he’d never met anyone aside from Lucifer. Dean seemed to fit the description. He was certainly brave, and cunning, and handsome. The thought made a smile tug at the corners of Castiel’s lips. A handsome man had fallen into his tower. There was something poetic about it, like a storybook.

He was still thinking, idly skimming his fingers over the back of Dean’s hand when he realized that the snoring had stopped.

“Hey,” Dean said, and Castiel tipped his head back to look up at him.

“Hello,” he answered seriously.

“Y’know, I thought you lied to me. I thought an angel was gonna die in my arms.”

There was some strange connotation in the words that Castiel couldn’t place. There was something more tender behind them, more gentle than the way Dean had spoken to him before. He frowned and was surprised when Dean’s palm brushed across his forhead.

“Don’t worry,” Dean laughed, “you’re alive.”

And then, because apparently Dean was done being tender and gentle, Castiel was shoved abruptly off his lap. “I’m gonna go get some firewood, now that you’re awake. I was going to have you look at the arrow, maybe see what those sigils meant, but it was covered in blood so I threw it in the fire and let it burn.”

Castiel nodded mutely and sat up, watching Dean’s back as he walked away. Castiel scooted back until his back hit the log Dean had been leaning on. He fanned the fire idly with his wings and let his head tip back so he could stare at the stars.

But Dean wasn’t gone for long. He came back with more firewood as promised, and Castiel watched silently as he threw the logs on the fire. He frowned when he realized Dean was holding a hand to his side.

“Are you injured?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Dean said gruffly, pulling up his shirt to reveal a hastily wrapped wound across his ribs. “But angel powers only heal angels, so I’ll live.”

Castiel bit his lip and looked over his shoulder at his wings. “It’s true,” he said finally, “that most angels cannot heal another being’s wounds, but…” he trailed off and patted the ground next to him. “Come sit,” he said.

To his surprise, Dean did as Castiel asked. Castiel watched with a critical eye as Dean walked, swaying just a little bit. They had both walked away from that battle with wounds, and Castiel hadn’t noticed because he’d been too busy enjoying the way Dean’s hand had felt while it rested between his wings. But now that Dean had gone and come back, Castiel could see the way the man was clearly favoring his left side.

Dean dropped down next to Castiel, and Castiel stuck his wing out in front of Dean. “Here,” he said, “Touch it.”

Castiel didn’t like his wings being touched. Well, he hadn’t had much experience with it, Lucifer was the only one who ever touched Castiel’s wings, and Castiel hated that. Lucifer was always rough, tugging on the feathers hard enough to hurt, sometimes pulling them out.

But Dean’s hands, when they pressed against the feathers were gentle. Castiel flinched a little out of habit as Dean’s hand stroked through the black down, but Dean was gentle and persistent, and Castiel relaxed. He focused, just as Lucifer had taught him to, and closed his eyes.

He spoke quietly in Enochian, the words falling into the air and wrapping around the pair in the clearing, the only other sound was the crackle of the fire. When he opened his eyes, Dean was staring at his hands with wide eyes.

“Your wings. Your _black_ wings, they—”

“Please don’t be frightened,” Castiel said hastily.

“No, I’m not. It’s just your wings just healed my potentially fatal wound. How…how long have your wings been…magical?”

“For as long as I can remember,” Castiel said quietly. “Lucifer says that I have unique wings. You seem to agree, as did the demon at Ellen’s bar—Crowley? As far as I have read I have never found another angel who has black wings,” Castiel frowned. “And I am the only angel who can heal other beings. People, men and demons, would take advantage of my gift, that’s why Lucifer never let me…” Castiel trailed off and pulled his wings back against his body, staring down at his hands.

“That’s why your brother never let you leave the tower. You’ve never left that tower.” Dean finished quietly. “But you’re still…you’re going to go back?”

“No!” Castiel paused, “Well yes. I don’t know, it’s complicated.” He ran a hand through his hair and smiled at Dean blankly. “So,” he said softly, “Dean Winchester, with a brother and a father, who is a thief.”

Dean rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. “I’ll spare you that sob story,” he laughed.

Castiel shook his head, “I’d like to hear it, if you would tell it to me.”

Dean sighed, “My mom died when I was four. A demon snuck out of Hell and killed her. This was back before they started leaving in big groups, before they started attacking everyone. My dad decided to try and find the demon, to try and stop all the bad things that come out of Hell. He protected Heaven and Earth. But Heaven had also suffered losses from Demons, their entire royal family, and they blamed men for that as well. So Sam, that’s my brother, and I traveled around with my dad. Helping people, saving them. It was a horrible life for a kid, and when my dad died, I realized I knew enough to be a thief. So I started thieving. But I do it for Sam, y’know? So the kid can have a better life, maybe go to school.”

“That is brave of you, Dean,” Castiel said seriously, “You are a good man.”

“Yeah well,” Dean rubbed the back of his neck again, “Just don’t tell anyone, ok? I have a reputation to protect.”

Castiel nodded and they fell into silence, just staring at one another. Castiel counted the different shades of color in Dean’s eyes, looked at the freckles on his nose. They were leaning closer and closer in.

Abruptly, Dean shot up. “More firewood,” he mumbled, and practically ran out of the clearing.

Castiel frowned to himself and looked down at his hands again, thinking about Dean Winchester and his road of good intentions.

“Oh thank, God,” rang out a voice behind Castiel, “I thought that filthy human would never leave.”

Castiel jumped and spun around, “Lucifer,” he said, his eyes wide. “What are you doing here?”

Lucifer stepped out from behind a tree and walked over to Castiel. He pulled his younger brother to his feet, and then Castiel was encased in a vicious hug, his nose pressed against Lucifer’s shoulder, and his wings crushed in his older brother’s too tight grip. “It was easy to find you, little brother,” Lucifer said in the silky smooth voice of his, “All I had to do was listen to the sound of disobedience and betrayal, and there you were,” finally, Lucifer let go and stepped back.

Castiel swallowed hard and looked at his older brother in fear. “Lucifer, I—”

“I don’t want to hear it, Castiel. We’re returning home—now.”

He grabbed Castiel’s arm and yanked him out of the warm circle of the fire and back into the forest. Castiel pulled back, shaking his head and digging his feet in. “Lucifer, Lucifer please, wait!”

Lucifer didn’t listen, he just kept walking and dragging Castiel through the trees. Castiel flapped his wings back and braced his legs, then wrenched his arm out of Lucifer’s grip. “ _No!_ he shouted.

“No?” Lucifer repeated. “Oh. I see. You’ve learned the ways of the world now have you, Castiel? You fought the monsters, you had a beer, and you met someone. Is that it?”

“Yes,” Castiel said, “Lucifer, I think he might have feelings for me, I—”

“How naïve of you,” Lucifer said. “I know the hearts of men, Castiel, better than anyone. Certainly better than you. You have trusted me all your life, little brother, trust me now. Dean Winchester has no interest in you, he cares for one thing and one thing only: this,” Lucifer held out the satchel with the strange circle of blue and white.

Castiel wanted to argue. He wanted to tell his brother about Sam and Jo, Ellen and Bobby, the people in Dean’s life who he tried to protect. He wanted to tell Lucifer that Dean had saved him, but all that he could say was, “How did you get that?”

“Give him this, Castiel,” Lucifer said. He snapped his fingers, “That’s how fast he’ll leave you, but go ahead, little brother, give him his satchel.”

“I will!” Castiel said fiercely.

“When I’m right, I won’t say I told you so, but don’t come crying and looking for comfort, Castiel.”

And then his brother was gone, disappearing back into the darkness.

~

  


~

Castiel shoved something behind his back the second Dean stepped back into the clearing, but it could have just been his hands. Dean wasn’t sure. He’d made a rather dramatic exit, and he supposed Castiel deserved some secrets this early in the game. He was surprised to realize that he didn’t need to know what Castiel was hiding from him. He was surprised to realize that he trusted the angel who had spent his entire life locked up in a tower.

“You’re pretty smart, for someone who spent all their time in a tower,” Dean admitted.

Castiel’s shoulders stiffened, and Dean gave himself a mental high five for being the world’s biggest dick. “Yes,” Castiel said, “I read a lot.”

Dean nodded like that answered everything, mostly because he didn’t want to have the conversation anymore. Anything he said would probably be offensive because Dean was on the defensive. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do here. Dean didn’t have a good history with friends. Girls, sure, he’d known some girls. They died. Or hated him. Sometimes both. It had been Dean and Sam and sometimes Bobby for a long time, he realized that somehow Castiel had gotten past all of Dean’s defenses. Well, except for Dean’s spectacular ability to act like a douchebag, and his latent offense of fucking everything up in the end.

“Well, good night, then,” Dean announced. It was awkward, he knew it was awkward, but there wasn’t anything to do about it. Dean had put his foot in his mouth enough times that night, thank you very much. He dropped down onto the grass near the fire and turned his back to Castiel. After a few minutes, he heard the angel settle down as well.

The night was long and strangely loud. Dean’s sleep was restless. He tossed and turned, shifting and pressing his head against the grass to stifle the sounds. Dean could just see Castiel, looking small and fragile underneath the tent of his wings. Eventually, Dean drifted off, feeling strangely cold and alone.

Morning came as it always did, though, and Dean’s first thought was that he was glad it was such a lovely day. His second thought was that there was something wet on his face. His third thought was that he hoped the something wet wasn’t angel drool, and then he opened his eyes because there was no way that Castiel could be sleeping close enough to drool on him.

But of course, the angel was. He was pressed up against Dean’s side, his eyes closed in the perfect picture of innocence. Dean watched him for a second, reaching a hand out to run his fingers through Castiel’s hair—

“What the hell am I doing?” he muttered, jerking his hand away and going to stand up. Dean didn’t get far, in fact, he didn’t get up. He was pulled back several feet by something that was grabbing his foot and yanking. “What? No!” he said, grabbing at grass and trying to see what was going on.

Dean’s eyes moved in frantic circles, trying to get a grip on the situation. His ankle hurt, throbbed actually, and no matter how many fistfuls of grass he grabbed up to secure himself he just kept getting pulled back. He flailed a little frantically, his fingertips smacking hard against Castiel’s wings.

“Dean?” Castiel sat up. “Dean!”

The angel reached out, his long fingers surprisingly warm as they locked hard around Dean’s wrist. He had the distinct feeling that he was being ripped in two. On one side, a strong, impossible and invisible force clamped tight around his ankle, pulling; on the other side was an angel, just as strong and equally impossible, but also warm and alive and real, and Dean couldn’t un-see those blue eyes even if he’d wanted to.

The whole experience was surreal, and it took Dean a moment to realize that Castiel was saying words that weren’t just his name. “Let go of him,” the angel said. The power in his voice was almost frightening. There was something about the way Castiel spoke. It was strong, it was evocative. It was _regal_.

“Ow,” Dean grumbled as, at once, the invisible force and the angel both let go of him. He landed on the ground, stretched out and abused, but finally he sat up. What he saw was an alarming amount of nothingness. No angel. No monster. Just the quiet forest all around him.

“Castiel?” Dean hissed, moving up into a crouch. He grabbed a branch for a weapon and followed the sound of Castiel’s voice.

“No one appreciates you, do they?” he could hear Castiel saying. The voice came from behind some bushes, so Dean advanced that way. “You work so hard, don’t you? You saved us back there, you know. Dean would have died without you. I may not have made it out of the fight,” Castiel’s voice paused, and when Dean pushed aside a branch, he saw the angel fluff his wings out and compose himself. “I’m grateful for that,” Castiel whispered. “Thank you.”

The words were solemn and so was Castiel, but the image behind the trees was comical. Castiel was standing there with his long black wings fluttering soothingly against a tall black horse. He looked as regal as he had sounded only moments ago, except for Dean’s brown boot, which flopped lifelessly in Castiel’s hand.

What was Castiel talking about? How had he been saved?

He considered Impala, for it was certainly Impala. No other horse could be as huge and beautiful, as deadly and graceful as that black horse. Dean remembered a story his mother had told him once, what felt like a lifetime ago. She told him about a couple who bought a pair of horses that had only one foal. A beautiful black foal with so much promise. She told him that the foal was magic, although he suspected that was part of the story. She told him that foal was her daughter just as much as he was her son, that he and the horse had been siblings.

But angels had come in the night, she said, and stolen the beautiful foal away.

Dean hadn’t thought about that story in years, but when he thought about it now, Impala looked like he’d always imagined that foal.

And according to Castiel, Impala had saved him. Twice now, the horse had come to his rescue. That wasn’t the kind of thing that people (or horses) did just for shits and giggles. Impala had always known when he was in danger. She’d saved him when Jehovah and the Brothers almost caught him. And the second time…she’d pushed Dean off a cliff, where Castiel had scooped him up. At the time, Dean had thought Castiel had great reflexes, but now he wondered.

Dean considered Impala, this horse who seemed so much like a part of his family, although they’d never really met. “You’re awesome,” he said to the animal, and it wasn’t enough—not nearly enough, but the horse snuffed against Dean’s palm and seemed to except it. He smiled at her, running a hand down her smooth muzzle. “Good girl,” he said quietly.

Behind him, Castiel laughed. It was a surprisingly good sound to hear.

Dean Winchester was alone in the world except for his brother, but he didn’t talk about that much. He was alone in the world—except now he wasn’t.

Suddenly Dean Winchester was friends with an angel and an Impala.

It wasn’t as abhorrent an idea as he would’ve thought.

~

  


~

It was the most beautiful thing Castiel had ever seen.

He pulled away from Dean’s side, walking up ahead of everyone else to stare at the huge city before them. It started at the base of a hill, then wound up and up into the sky. The capital City of Heaven. Even though Castiel had never been here in his life, it felt like coming home.

He tried to take in everything at once; the cobblestones on the bridge, the elaborate gold gates, the statues of angels that decorated the pathway leading into the city. He could have stopped there and stared all day, wrapped in the beauty and calm of the walk in, but a hand pressed against his arm.

“Wait a second,” Dean was saying. Castiel spun around, disappointment etched onto his face. They’d had a deal, but maybe Dean had found the satchel, maybe he knew. Maybe he was going to leave Castiel at the gates of this city and run away. Castiel thought that he could probably get home, but he wasn’t certain. He’d have to go home eventually, but then Lucifer would know.

“Dean—” he started, and then stopped. Dean was motioning to a group of young girls playing with large pieces of fabric.

“They’re seamstresses daughters,” Dean said. “The best way to get free clothes. No one ever lets them make anything, but they’re all good at it from the day they’re born. It’s practically an inheritable trait. And these girls, I bet they make capes for angels all the time. Capes that could hide your _wings_ , Cas.”

It was a clever plan, Castiel realized. Aside from being magical (something that Dean still wasn’t very good at shutting up about) Castiel’s wings were also black. And, as everyone they’d met so far on the road had pointed out, black wings were unique to Castiel.

Dean had been right. The little girls were ecstatic and alternated between petting his wings and draping the cape over his frame to take measurements and trim. Castiel had never had anyone besides Lucifer touch his wings (and Dean too, he supposed), and the sensation was strangely pleasant. It was one of the calmest hours of Castiel’s life, and he plucked a long black feather for each girl as payment when they were through.

“Thank you,” he said seriously, crouching down and meeting each pair of wide human eyes. “You are talented seamstresses.”

The girls giggled and blushed. “All right, Romeo, let’s get a move on or we’ll be late,” Dean said, nudging Castiel’s shoulder. The gesture had been repeated several times over the day, and Castiel was beginning to think it was Dean’s way of showing affection. He smiled faintly, just a little tugging at the corners of his lips.

“What’s so funny?” Dean asked and Castiel could feel Dean’s gaze on him.

He shrugged, “Nothing, I just—” Castiel paused, trying to find the right words. “I’m thankful. Thank you for this, for taking me out of the tower and introducing me to Ellen and Jo, and for finding a cape so I could walk through the city unhindered.”

The gratitude seemed to make Dean uncomfortable. He reached up a hand and scrubbed at the back of his neck. “Yeah, it’s no problem, man. I just need that satchel back, y’know?”

The smile slipped off Castiel’s face and he nodded. “Yes,” he agreed quietly, his hand brushing against the satchel hidden under his cape, “I know.”

~

 

“What are we doing?” Castiel asked, and Dean looked over his shoulder at the reluctant angel. The cape looked good on him, the blue velvet made his eyes stand out even more than they already did. Dean thought of the blue gemstones on the stolen crown—but Castiel’s eyes were prettier than the stones that mimicked those of a long dead (probably) prince, and so he smiled.

“We’re going to see the stars,” Dean said. “And I’m going to tell you about what they really are.” He held a hand out and helped Castiel down into the boat.

“I’ve never been on a boat before,” Castiel said, and Dean was surprised to detect a level of fear in Castiel’s voice. It wasn’t something he associated with the angel. Dean watched, bemused, as the cape shifted uncertainly around Castiel’s shoulders—Castiel was trying to shift his wings to shield himself, and the fabric was getting in the way. Dean realized that he missed looking at the silky, ink black feathers. The cape was pretty, but Castiel’s wings were beautiful.

Wait, what?

Dean didn’t use words like beautiful. Not to describe women, and definitely not to describe men. He shook his head and then realized he was still holding Castiel’s hand.

He dropped it.

“They aren’t stars,” Dean said. “They’re feathers. There’s this missing prince—he’s probably dead—who the angels are always looking for. I guess they think that if they can get their prince back that everything will be fine. Angels are big believers in fate and prophecy. They think that things should go exactly as they would have from the start, so when stuff interferes,” Dean shrugged, “They cling to old hopes and dreams. Anyway, they burn the feathers to guide him home.”

Castiel was uncharacteristically silent, so Dean turned away. He thought it was a nice story. His mom used to tell it to him before she died. He’d told it to Sammy, too. Maybe to angels it was touchier, even to angels who had never really been around other angels.

He pushed the boat off the dock and waved at Impala, who was happily munching on some apples she’d stolen. She stomped a hoof in farewell, and Dean laughed.

They sailed out onto the lake, “I wanted you to have a good seat,” he explained to the still silent Castiel. “You should have the best seat in the joint.”

Castiel didn’t say anything, just looked down at his hands.

“Cas?” Dean said eventually, scooting closer to the angel and letting the boat float along in the middle of the giant lake. “You all right?”

“I’m frightened,” Castiel said. For the second time that night, Dean became aware that an angel, _his_ angel, could feel fear. Once, the knowledge might have been reassuring. Now, it settled itself, an uncomfortable weight, deep in Dean’s gut. He pressed a hand to Castiel’s shoulder in silent comfort, and waited for the angel to explain. “I’ve been waiting for this my entire life,” Castiel said softly, “Longer than your life, longer than the lives of your parents. What if I am wrong to be excited? What if my brother is right, and this is foolish. What if the sta—the feathers—are not what I have dreamed them to be?”

“They’ll be everything you thought they would,” Dean promised him, “Or we’ll go find some better stars, all right?”

Castiel smiled, just barely, and Dean smiled back.

“Thank you, Dean,” he said softly, and pressed his hand against Dean’s arm. There was a warmth to the touch that didn’t feel human, but then again, Castiel wasn’t a human.

~

That night, deep inside the walls of the angels’ castle, two conversations were held. One was between two guardians who clasped hands for the first time in nearly two centuries. The second was between three foes, who had a common goal. The first conversation was full of hope. The second was full of hate.

An angelic soldier, called Balthazaar, saw the shadows. He did not alert the rest of the guard, but watched instead as a shadowy angel with red hair pressed her fingers to her lips and breathed hope and dissension into the air. Then she turned and touched her brother’s cheek, and the light of her eyes quelled the coward’s fear that had made him run. That night, the two guardians crept up to the highest tower, hidden from view. They sent their burning feathers into the sky and announced their return.

The powers of Heaven trembled and remembered what they had done.

They prepared to wage a war.

~~~

As the boat glided into the center of the lake, Castiel felt a strange sense of peace sliding through his body. The feeling started in his fingertips and moved down his arms. He relaxed slowly, leaning back into the boat and never taking his eyes off the sky. Well, almost never. After a few moments of silence and calm, Castiel looked back at Dean. The human was looking up, his eyes drawn to the purple hued clouds as the last of the suns rays set behind the castle. This was his moment.

Except, no, that wasn’t right. This was their moment.

“Here,” Castiel heard himself saying. He watched as his hand pulled the satchel out from behind the great cloak. “I want you to have this. Now, not later.”

Even though he felt at ease, and even though he trusted Dean, Castiel still felt his wings shift uncertainly under the cloak. They made the slightest flutter, but it was enough. Dean, who had been staring at Castiel, and the satchel still hanging between them, looked past Castiel’s shoulders. Self consciously, Castiel started pulling his wings in closer.

“Thanks,” Dean said. “But lets not worry about it.”

He took the satchel and dropped it on the floor, between their feet. Castiel smiled.

The first two lanterns sailed into the sky the moment the clouds turned from purple to black. Castiel was so excited to see them that he almost fell out of the boat. He watched in awe as feathers rose slowly up from inside the city walls, from out on the docks, and from the trees surrounding the city. He’d been watching these feathers his whole life, but suddenly they were there, right in front of him. Chuck licked his cheek affectionately before jumping off his shoulder to smack the reflections of light in the water with his long, chameleon’s tongue.

Castiel laughed. He felt lighter than he had felt all his life, and he had Dean to thank. Dean, who smiled with his whole face—but didn’t smile often. Dean, who talked about a little brother and a dead father with a sense of responsibility older and deeper than any human Castiel had ever read about. Dean, who hadn’t wanted to take him to see the stars, who could have abandoned him and gone back to the tower alone. Dean, who had saved Castiel’s life.

Dean, who was…tugging painfully on Castiel’s wing.

“Ouch!” Castiel protested, snapping his wings back into his body and glaring at Dean. Castiel had never had a _moment_ before, but he was pretty sure Dean had just ruined one.

“Sorry,” Dean said, but didn’t sound sorry at all. In fact, he was holding one of Castiel’s feathers in his hand and looking proud. Castiel glared harder. “Calm down, Medusa,” Dean said, and he was laughing now. He was _laughing_ at Castiel. “You came all this way to see the stars, you might as well get to make one.”

And, oh.

Castiel watched Dean pull a small cage out of the bottom of the boat. Dean set the small black feather inside it. Castiel held his breath as Dean’s fingers curled around a burning match, and he didn’t let it out until the flame touched Castiel’s black feather.

It burned a bright and clear blue, different from the soft pinks and yellows of every other lantern floating in the sky. Dean reached out to hand it to Castiel, but Castiel wrapped his hands around Dean’s, and they sent it flying up together.

~

Dean watched Castiel as the blue lantern floated up to join the rest. They weren’t stars anymore. The angel finally knew them for what they were—lights, but they still held all their magic. For the first time in his life, Dean hoped that the angels would find the prince. Maybe it wouldn’t fix anything, but angels, humans, and demons all deserved to find what they were looking for. Dean certainly had.

He wasn’t going to get a castle. He couldn’t even begin to think of how to explain it to Sam, or Bobby, or anyone. That didn’t matter, because watching Castiel lean over the side of the boat with millions of burning feathers reflected in his blue eyes, Dean knew that he could stop looking for anything else.

So he couldn’t help it, really, and there was nothing to be done about it. He just took a deep breath and reached out, resting his hand on Castiel’s shoulder, then pushing the cape aside and running his fingers through Castiel’s wings. He felt the angel shudder, and suddenly Castiel’s eyes weren’t on the lantern anymore, they were on Dean.

Dean kept running his fingers through the feathers, and Castiel made a quiet, keening sound. Before he knew it, Dean was leaning in, pressing closer to Castiel’s wide blue eyes, close enough that he could feel the angel’s breath.

Everything was different now.

He rested his hand against Castiel’s cheek and leaned in closer, until their lips were barely touching. Castiel’s eyes were closed, and Dean’s eyes—

—Dean’s eyes drifted to the shore, where he saw Azazel and Alistair lit up in the eerie green glow of twin lanterns.

He pulled away from Castiel.

“Is everything ok?” the angel asked softly, staring at Dean.

“Yes—I,” Dean paused, his eyes straying to the satchel that held the crown, “There’s just something I have to take care of.”

Dean looked down at his hands before his eyes settled on the satchel. “Come on,” he said after a long pause, “let’s head back to the shore.”

Dean ignored the angel. He wasn’t sure what else to do. It was easier to pretend he was occupied with finding a safe place to land than to acknowledge the danger he had put them both in. Better not to answer any unasked questions, he knew, there would be time for that later.

Castiel may not have said anything when they pulled up to the shore, nearly a mile away from the dock they’d left from, but Dean could tell in the heavy hang of the black wings that Castiel had noticed. Dean smiled his best reassuring smile and let his hand fall onto Castiel’s shoulder, slowly, possessively. “Stay here,” he said, more firm than gentle.

Dean grabbed the satchel and started walking down the beach; toward the direction he’d seen the green lights go. As his feet crunched through sand and rocks, Dean heard Castiel turn to the chameleon. “It’s all right, Chuck,” Castiel was saying, “He’ll be back.”

Dean’s eyes closed for a breath—a moment of weakness—when he opened them, his steps were purposeful and confident.

“There you are,” he called when he finally spotted Azazel sitting on a rock. “I’ve been looking all over for you. You’re looking good. Is that a moustache? I didn’t even know demons could grow those things. Look, man, I’m sorry I split back in the forest. You can have the crown. I don’t want it. We’re even.”

He threw the satchel at Azazel’s feet and the crown slid out a few inches. “It’s really all for the best,” Dean added, turning to leave and walking right into Alistair’s chest.

“Holding out on us again, Winchester?” Alistair half sang half spoke, his voice as cold as it was mocking.

“We heard you found something much more valuable than a crown,” Azazel continued smoothly, walking up behind Dean and throwing an arm around his shoulders.

“We want him,” Alistair said. “The angel with black wings.”

~

The minutes ticked by and Castiel paced across the sand next to the boat. Dean would come back. He had to. He wouldn’t leave Castiel, not now, not like this.

Right?

He sighed and slumped against the boat, pressing his face into his hands and wrapping his wings around his body. Dean would come back.

Chuck pressed against his cheek in warning. Slowly, Castiel unraveled his wings and peered out through the thick fog that had settled over everything. He couldn’t see the lights now, or the castle, just the wet blanket of fog, pressing against his skin and feathers. Chuck nudged him again and Castiel looked harder. Someone was coming.

“You came back,” he said, and tried to make it sound more like a statement and less like an exclamation. He failed. Miserably. “I was starting to think you ran off with the crown and left me.”

It wasn’t Dean. It wasn’t even a someone. There were two men, no—demons, moving through the mist

“He did,” said one like he was singing.

“No,” Castiel said firmly.

“See for yourself,” said the other demon, gesturing with his arm.

Castiel’s eyes moved from the two demons through the fog, and he squinted as he saw another boat gliding over the water. “No,” he whispered. “Dean!” he shouted, stepping forward as Dean and the boat disappeared in the thick fog. “No,” he said again, turning to the two demons and starting to back away. “No.”

“A fair trade,” Azazel mused, “A crown for the angel with magic wings.”

“How much do you think someone would pay to stay young and healthy forever?”

Castiel’s breath caught in his throat and his limbs turned to liquid. For a moment he couldn’t breathe or think or move. All he could do was stare at where Dean’s new boat had been. Chuck bit his ear, and finally Castiel turned and ran. He ran as hard as he could.

Castiel knew it wouldn’t be fast enough. He knew that the brothers—demons—would catch him. He wasn’t a runner, and the condensation already on his wings from the fog would make it hard, maybe even impossible, to fly.

From behind him he heard a cry, several grunts, and the sound of two heavy bodies collapsing into the sand. Then he heard it, the voice that made his knees go weak and the hair stand up on the back of his neck. “Hello, Castiel. Hello, little one.”

“Lucifer?” Castiel called quietly, sagging against a tree.

His brother moved into his vision, the fog parting around him like waves. Castiel walked forward. “Lucifer,” he said again, running now, throwing his arms around his brother and holding on as tightly as he could. “How did you—?”

“I was worried about you, Castiel,” Lucifer said, his voice smooth and calm. “So I followed you. When I saw them attack you…let us go, Castiel, before they come around.”

They crept away, Castiel leaning heavily against his brother’s side. He looked over his shoulder to where Dean and the boat had been. Both were gone now. _Dean_ was gone.

“You were right, Lucifer,” he said softly. “You were right about everything.”

~

His head felt like it was full of sand, or maybe really heavy water, because everything was swaying. Dean blinked the blurriness out of his eyes and tried to take a step. Tried being the key word. He was stuck.

Tied, to be more accurate. The world was swaying because he was on a boat. He was stuck because he was tied to the mast. His head hurt because someone had knocked him out. The only question left was why he felt so urgent. Something was happening that Dean needed to stop, he just couldn’t figure out what.

He wanted to rub the back of his neck, but he couldn’t. Being tied up was a problem, but feeling dizzy and disoriented was worse. He needed to do something. He had to _help_ someone. He just didn’t know what or who.

Out of the corner of his eye, Dean saw something small and bright land in the water. It floated on top of a wave, rising and falling in the steady motion. Whatever it was, it was a beautiful shade of bright blue.

Water splashed over it and the light blinked out. All that was left on top of the water was a black feather, bobbing up and down in time with the boat.

Just a feather.

A _black feather_.

“Oh shit. Cas.”

Dean felt himself begin to panic, but he couldn’t lose his head now. Not yet. First he had to figure out to get untied. He peered over his shoulder at the ropes, pulling at them uncertainly. “Cmon,” he mumbled. “C’mon.”

“Need a hand with that?”

Dean looked up as the boat hit a dock.

He looked up into the face of Jehovah and his army.

“Shit.”

~

Lucifer didn’t lock Castiel back in the crawlspace, but it was a near thing.

~

When Dean had all but given up, when the light had faded behind the bars of his cell, and the nails had been hammered into the wood to build his gallows, that was when he knew he would never see Castiel again. More importantly, he would never save Castiel. Azazel and Alistair had him, maybe forever, and there was nothing Dean could do. Help, however, came from unexpected placed. Or unexpected people. Well, not really people. Unexpected angels. An archangel. Named Gabriel.

Everything happened quickly. Dean had been standing in his cell, staring out the little window as hard as he possibly could. He had been planning an escape; trying to think of a way he could fit his body out the window despite its small size. Dean knew there had to be a way to get out, because this wasn’t how the hero was supposed to die.

Except maybe it was. This was how his dad had died, locked up in a cell in Hell and then hung from his neck. The higher ups liked to make examples of people like Dean and John Winchester. Maybe this was exactly how the hero would die.

But Castiel was out there, and Dean needed to do something about that. Alistair and Azazel would destroy the angel, especially an angel as unique as Castiel was—and it would be Dean’s fault. He wanted to dwell on that. The self-loathing part of Dean that knew he had never deserved Sam also knew he had never deserved Cas. He could just sit down and list the ways the angel had helped him and compare them to the list of ways Dean had hurt him.

He wasn’t positive, but “Getting Him Kidnapped by Sadistic, Murdering, Douchebag Demon Brothers” was probably up there with worst things Dean had ever done to someone in his life.

There was a metallic clang behind him, and Dean jumped before he turned around. Jehovah stood at the door, flanked by two angels Dean had never seen before.

“Who are you?” he spat.

“My name is Zachariah and I’m the one in charge,” said the taller angel—the one who really looked like an asshole.

“The pleasure’s yours, I’m sure,” Dean drawled as he pushed himself off the wall and squared his shoulders. He would look this angel in the eye.

“I’ve been looking for you for a very long time, Mr. Winchester,” Zachariah said, smiling. It was an ugly smile. His waxy face stretched and split into two halves separated by the slice of his lips and teeth. The skin stretched so far that Dean thought it might melt right off. An ugly, cruel smile, not the kind of thing Dean had expected from an angel.

“I helped some demons kill your father many years ago,” continued the angel, “And now, now I have you.”

“You want a gold star, buddy?” Dean asked, rolling his eyes.

“Yes, I think that will be just what I want, once I’ve rid myself of Winchesters,” he paused, “Shall I give your brother and Mr. Singer your regards, then? Before I slice them from grin to groin, of course.”

That was taking things a step too far. The angels could threaten anyone they wanted to, except Sam. _Never_ Sam. “Stay away from my brother, you son of a bitch,” Dean growled, stepping forward.

Zachariah just laughed. “Jehovah, my good man, I think it’s time.”

“Time for what?” a decidedly female voice called from somewhere beyond Dean’s vision. “Isn’t it a bit early for tea?”

“Well it is five o’clock somewhere, as the humans say,” rang out another voice.

Dean felt more than saw Zachariah freak out. There was a strange pulse of power in the air, and the walls of the castle trembled. It didn’t last long. This time, Dean saw Zachariah deflate. There was a politically polite smile on his face now, no less ugly, but a little less frightening.

“Anael,” he said, as two figures stepped in front of Dean’s cell, “Gabriel. It has been _such_ a long time.”

Dean hadn’t really ever seen a girl angel. He didn’t know why, he just hadn’t. He wondered why it had taken him so long to see one, because this one was _hot_.

“Dean Winchester,” the hot angel said. “You can count it as my pleasure to meet you. Gabriel doesn’t have any manners to speak of, but I assure you he’s happy to see you as well.”

A short male angel walked in and smiled, spreading his arms out in front of him in an open gesture. “I’m glad to see everyone,” he said with another grin. Dean couldn’t help but think there was something dangerous about that smile. “Even you, Zachariah,” he added. “You know, I’ve been busy these two hundred fifty years. Busy, trying to make up for my loss of the child. I played a thousand different parts. Oddly enough, I made some friends.”

“That _is_ strange,” Zachariah's voice dripped with disdain, “that _you_ should find anyone able to tolerate you.”

Gabriel’s smile collapsed. “Do not forget to whom you speak, Zachariah,” he said quietly.

“We remain your superiors,” Anael added, although her voice was lighter and much more friendly. “We realize we have been lax, of late, although if I remember correctly, you threw me out after Gabriel flew the coup.”

Her eyes landed on Zachariah, sharp and intent. Dean was glad he wasn’t the subject of that powerful gaze. She hummed with power and intent. The hot angel was raw and calculating, to the point where Dean wouldn’t have questioned her ability to kill them. She wasn’t bragging, exactly. It was more like she wanted everyone in the room to know that if she wanted to, she could—a statement of a truth.

Gabriel was different. He was leaning against the wall, his shoulder pressed to hard stone. He was cocky, but obviously nervous. Gabriel was making an effort to appear relaxed and easy going, but Dean knew (everyone knew) what Gabriel was. Everyone knew what Gabriel was. The coward who fled.

But he was powerful. He wasn’t making anyone aware of it, like Anael was, but Dean (and Zachariah apparently) could sense the power of the archangel. There were others of higher rank then Gabriel—Dean remembered Sam telling him that—but they didn’t interact with humans. Gabriel was easily the most powerful angel that Dean had ever seen.

“Anna, you’re too formal for me,” Gabriel finally declared after a long and silent stare down. “Let me make this easy for you, Zach. Get the fuck out of my way.”

Nobody moved. Gabriel looked at his watch.

“I don’t have time for this,” he snapped. “I need this human alive. He knows where the prince has been taken. After that, you can gut him for all I care, but until I get Castiel back, _Dean Winchester is mine_. I am not in the mood to be toyed with Zachariah. I may not be able to kill everyone here, but I will kill the fuck out of you, and I will enjoy it.”

Zachiarah drew his blade to fight, but there wasn’t much of a battle. Gabriel moved more quickly than Dean could follow, but he heard the shouts. The blade fell from Zachariah’s fat fingers, and Dean grabbed it. There wasn’t much to think about, Dean wasn’t usually a killer, but his family had been threatened. Somehow, the angelic blade was put through Zachariah’s waxy skull, Dean’s fingers curled around it.

Gabriel and Anael looked impressed. “Well done,” Anael said.

Dean undressed her with his eyes.

“Again,” Gabriel drawled, “I don’t have time for this. Deano, my man,” he smiled, “Let’s use that pretty little head of yours to find Castiel.”

Dean’s temper flared and he took a threatening step closer. “What do you want with Cas?”

Gabriel laughed. He actually laughed. “Oh you poor mud monkey. Could you _be_ any slower? He’s the prince, Dean. He’s the missing prince.”

~

Hours after he had watched the boat float off into the fog, Castiel was lying on his back in his bed. Lucifer had only just left. He had spent some time shredding the cape that the girls had made on Dean’s orders, and some time reminding Castiel how useless, powerless, clumsy, and awful he had been. Castiel noticed Lucifer looked better when he was leaving the room than he had since the day he’d left to find Castiel the paint, but he was too exhausted to wonder about it.

He just wanted to lie there.

It was strange. Castiel had read time and time again about the way being left behind felt. He had always known about pain, and loss, and sadness.

Castiel thought about the characters in the books he’d read and decided that no words could do the heaviness in him justice. He had been traded in for a crown. Not just left behind, not just forgotten, but _sold_ to those two demons. If Lucifer hadn’t been there…

“Castiel,” Lucifer’s voice sounded from the doorway.

Castiel turned his head slowly to look as his brother. He looked tall now, healthy. Castiel remembered the way he had looked weak and sick. His mind told him that something was wrong, but Lucifer had just said he was always healthier when Castiel was around.

“Do you want to know why I don’t have any wings?” Lucifer asked. “I was punished. I was punished for doing something horrible. Angels die without wings,” Lucifer paused while the information sank in. “But I did not die, Castiel. Remember when I told you I couldn’t live without you? I literally couldn’t.”

Lucifer stepped closer to Castiel and laid a hand on his cheek. Castiel stared up into his older brother’s hazel eyes. For the first time, he realized why Lucifer caused the strange shiver. For the first time, he knew why the hair on the back of his neck stood on end every time Lucifer walked into the room.

Castiel stared into Lucifer’s eyes and saw no warmth there. He’d looked into warm eyes. He’d seen the careless affection in Ellen’s eyes, in Jo’s, and even in Dean’s. What Castiel had mistaken for affection in his brother’s gaze was the sharp coldness of evil, the warmth of a soul that is burning up. Castiel saw the life in a body that should have been dead.

“You used me,” Castiel said, pulling away from Lucifer’s touch.

“No, Castiel,” Lucifer purred, “I am using you.”

Castiel was shoved up against the wall, his hands and wings pinned underneath the solidity of Lucifer’s wingless body. He tried to pull away, but his brother held him there.

“Do you know what you’re good for, little Castiel?” Lucifer asked softly, his mouth right against Castiel’s ear. “You help people. You fix them. You are like a band-aid, little brother. Do you know what people do to band-aids?”

Castiel was silent. Lucifer pressed him harder against the wall, crushing his wings.

“No,” Castiel ground out, trying to push his brother back off him.

“They throw them away. Just like that human did with you. People don’t keep band-aids around. After they are used up, they become vile, used, disgusting. That’s what you are to everyone in this universe, Castiel. _Used_.”

Lucifer slowly backed up, turning Castiel’s body around and running a hand through Castiel’s spiky brown hair. “But not me, Castiel,” Lucifer said softly. “You are my little brother. I see you through rose colored glasses. I see you through eyes full of love. You know that I love you, Castiel. You know that.”

But Castiel didn’t know that. His wings and arms hurt, his head ached, and there was a heaviness in the pit of his stomach that spoke of abandonment. He could hide here with Lucifer for the rest of his life. Did he really have a choice? There was no where else to go. Better to live with the brother who claimed to love him than live alone and without a home.

Castiel was going to give up. He was going to be obedient. He was never going to leave Lucifer alone again. He would stay here and never wonder why Lucifer didn’t have wings again. He would die in this place, perhaps before Lucifer did.

“Get the fuck off him.”

Or maybe he wouldn’t.

~~~

When Dean walked into the tower he was alone. That had been part of his agreement with Gabriel. He had to be the one to tell Castiel. He’d expected fighting, maybe Castiel sitting in time out or something. He hadn’t expected to see Lucifer pinning Castiel against the wall or the hopeless slump of Castiel’s wings.

Dean wondered if he maybe should have brought Gabriel and Anael into the clearing with him after all. He stepped inside, taking stock of the situation. He was alone, weaponless, and he had no idea what Lucifer was capable of.

“Dean?”

If Dean had been contemplating running away and leaving Castiel where he was, that contemplation ended at that moment. There was something in the timbre of Castiel’s voice that made Dean’s heart skip a beat. He knew (he’d seen) that the angel wasn’t helpless, but in the face of the brother he loved, Dean couldn’t blame Castiel for hesitating.

“I’m right here, Cas,” Dean said as he circled the room, trying to find something to use as a weapon. “I’m sorry, we haven’t met yet. I’m Dean, you must be Lucifer.”

He would deny it until his dying day, but when Lucifer turned and locked his eyes on him, Dean was terrified.

“You’re the human who took my brother from me,” Lucifer said, dropping Castiel from his hold. Dean’s eyes tore away from Lucifer’s to follow Castiel’s slump down the wall. If the situation hadn’t been so serious, Dean would have laughed at the pile of feathers and tousled hair that Castiel was turned into.

“That would be me.”

“You know, angels have always been so much better than humans,” Lucifer said thoughtfully, stepping over to Dean. “I was never certain why humans were allowed to live so close to us. The foolish king…he made so many mistakes. I was there, you know. We were friends, the King and I. I was the one who advised him to make a deal with a demon.”

Dean’s eyes darted from Castiel to Lucifer and back again. “That’s nice,” he said, mostly to keep Lucifer talking. “Am I supposed to be impressed? You’re old and ugly and you don’t have any wings. See, if you ask me, the only thing angels are good for is flying. And you can’t.”

Lucifer smiled. That made Dean more uncomfortable than the glaring or the offensive stance of Lucifer’s shoulders. It was a cold curve to the mouth, a smile of battle—no, Dean thought—a smile of victory. “Dean, Dean, Dean,” Lucifer said. “We could have been friends, you and I. Had you been born not a monkey, but a god.”

“You are not a god,” Dean said lowly, circling now, trying to put himself between Lucifer and Castiel. He succeeded.

“What does a god do but create and destroy life?” Lucifer asked. “I created Castiel’s life,” he paused and pulled a long silver sword out of…well, Dean wasn’t sure where it came from. “Now I am going to destroy yours.”

There wasn’t time to react or defend himself. One second, Lucifer was standing across the room, the next he was right in front of Dean; his blade was buried in Dean’s stomach. Dean choked on air, or maybe blood, and stared into Lucifer’s eyes. “Killing me,” he said, and blood flecked across Lucifer’s cheeks with the words, “Doesn’t mean you win.”

Dean Winchester realized two things as his body slumped forward into Lucifer’s chilling grip, he had never prepared to die so often before he met Castiel. He had never been hurt often enough.

Dean realized that he had also never been saved.

~

“Stop.”

Castiel wasn’t sure where the strength in his voice or his legs came from, but when he stood up slowly, it was with all the grace of a full-grown angel. He wasn’t surprised—he didn’t have time to be surprised—but this power felt right. He thought briefly about the golden circle, and then he stepped past Lucifer and wrapped his arms around Dean, lowering him to the ground.

“You aren’t supposed to die for me,” Castiel said softly, pressing his hand against Dean’s cheek and angling Dean’s head so that their eyes met.

“Well man, I’m definitely dying. So I feel like it’s ok to let you know you have the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen.”

That surprised a laugh out of Castiel, and he smiled down at Dean. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“We’re totally having a _moment_ aren’t we?” Dean asked, and Castiel smiled and laughed because he wasn’t sure that Dean could right now. He knew that Dean wanted to.

“I believe we are,” Castiel said quietly. He leaned down and pressed his foerhead against Dean’s. “Which is why I won’t let you die.”

His wings wrapped around the pair of them, encasing Dean in the warm black feathers. Castiel opened his mouth to recite the words that would make Dean whole again.

“No.”

Lucifer’s voice was deathly still. Castiel, for the first time in two hundred fifty years, ignored him. For the first time in two hundred and fifty years, Castiel knew that he had something worth ignoring Lucifer for.

So he spoke the words and watched the life return to Dean’s eyes. For a moment, just for a moment, Castiel knew what home felt like.

Then, all he felt was pain.

~

Of all the things Dean had been expecting, the scream that tore from Castiel’s lips wasn’t one of them. It wasn’t a scream as much as it was a sound of incomprehensible losa. Dean grabbed Castiel’s wrists, confused, trying to offer comfort.

But the screaming didn’t stop, and Dean was forced to push Castiel off of him so he could see what happened. What he saw was Lucifer, panting and ashen, his shaking hands wrapped around the hilt of the blade he’d used to kill Dean (or to try to, Dean still wasn’t one hundred percent sure whether he was alive or dead).

The blade was embedded in Castiel’s wings.

As suddenly as it had started, the screaming stopped. Four seconds ago, Dean had been pretty sure that he would never hear anything worse than that scream. He would have sworn to it.

But Castiel’s silence was so much worse.

Castiel lay on the ground where Dean had left him, not moving, his face paler than Lucifer’s and his eyes open, but blank and glazed. Dean wondered what it felt like for Castiel right now, he supposed he’d never know.

Dean spun around and launched himself at Lucifer, no fear, no pain, just anger. He grabbed the angel around the waist and threw the both of them out the window. If this was how he died then so be it, he would save Castiel. He _would_.

But Dean Winchester was not destined to die that day. As he and Lucifer plummeted to the ground below the tower, Lucifer disintegrated in his arms. He wasn’t even dust, just nothingness and an old cape. Dean let go of the cape and turned his gaze away from the rapidly approaching ground to the sky. “Any object falls at 9.8 meters per second per second,” he remembered Sam telling him one day. Dean wondered how many seconds he had left to live. He wondered how many meters he had fallen.

~

Pain. Castiel knew pain. He also heard a loud sound that he was horrified to realize was coming from his mouth. He didn’t know how to stop it. Didn’t know how to calm down. He knew Dean was holding him, but then he wasn’t. He knew that Dean and Lucifer were gone—but where? _Out the window_ his mind said. He knew that he couldn’t let Dean die. Some well of strength that Castiel didn’t know he had spread through his battered, broken feathers and bones, and he dove out of the window.

~

 

Dean found himself wrapped in Castiel’s arms. Castiel, who had been motionless on the floor with broken wings, was flying.

Well, it wasn’t really flying so much as it was a controlled fall, but it got the job done. They landed in a heap of feathers and limbs, and Dean wrapped his arms around Castiel and realized that this was one thing he would never let go of.

And he said, “It’s done, Cas, it’s done.”

And Castiel kissed him.

It wasn’t a gentle kiss. It was a sloppy press of lips and teeth. It was grabbing hands. Dean pressed closer, pulling Castiel into his lap and grabbing a handful of his hair. He kissed Castiel like it was the last thing either of them had left, and maybe it was.

Castiel bit at his lower lip and Dean moaned into his mouth. He tried to pull Castiel closer, and he almost succeeded, but—

“Are you really going to deflower the future King of Heaven in the middle of a field, potentially while he’s in the process of dying? Possibly on top of the ashes of his evil older brother?”

Gabriel sucked.

He really, really sucked.

~

Castiel hadn’t had much experience with kissing, but he thought their second one was better.

There had been conversations to have and people to meet. There had been some tears, although Castiel had taken a page from Dean’s book and would swear that he hadn’t been the one to shed them. (But in truth, when Gabriel had hugged him, Castiel’s heart and body had remembered this warm and teasing embrace from years so long gone that he hadn’t known they existed. And he had cried, because he had never known so many homes). He had gotten to put the ring back on his head, and now he knew that it was called a crown. He got to hug and be hugged, and no one fought with him about who loved whom the most. He was allowed to leave his bedroom.

To be fair, Castiel wasn’t sure why he would want to leave the bedroom. Dean was there and the space was enormous. The bed was bigger than Castiel’s room in the tower had been. “Big enough for sixteen women,” Dean had pronounced the first time he’d seen it. That had bothered Castiel, but Dean assured him that he was kidding.

In either case, it was certainly big enough for Castiel and Dean, and they were the only ones who used it anyway.

At first, Castiel had said it was because he didn’t want to sleep alone in an unfamiliar place, but he had been Prince Castiel for almost a week now, and lying in bed next to Dean was doing unfamiliar things to him. He had tried resolutely ignoring them, because he and Dean hadn’t talked about the kiss at all, but he was getting tired of that.

He had been talking with Gabriel, who had given him some advice, and Anael, who had given him what was probably better advice. The things about love and life that older siblings were _supposed_ to teach him, but that Lucifer never had.

That night, when Dean sat down in the bed next to him, Castiel took a deep breath and rolled over on the pillow to face him. The room was dark, but Castiel could still see the light of Dean’s eyes. It calmed him. He thought about talking, about maybe saying thank you, which he hadn’t yet said to Dean, but in the end he knew that words wouldn’t say the things he wanted to say.

They were close enough that their breath mingled in the space between their mouths. Castiel breathed in through his nose, all these things that were Dean, smells he’d known were there but never taken the time to think about. Dean smelled like the outside. He smelled warm, not in a bad way, but in a familiar way that made Castiel feel at once comfortable and safe. There were other, naturey smells, and one that wasn’t necessarily spicy, but maybe like cinnamon—only not exactly that either. In his head, Castiel knew that that was what Dean smelled like. He was certain it was his favorite smell in the world.

Dean didn’t pull away, so Castiel shifted closer, rolling Dean onto his back and sliding on top of him. His legs straddled Dean’s hips, and he looked down into Dean’s eyes and was rewarded with a smile. Castiel was struck with the sudden urge to taste that smile, and so he did. He pressed his mouth against Dean’s and let his eyes close.

His lips were warm and smooth, where Castiel knew his own were rough and maybe cold, but Dean didn’t pull away. He pressed a hand to the side of Castiel’s face, then against the back of his neck, pulling Castiel closer.

Dean’s tongue pressed against Castiel’s lower lip, and Castiel pulled back, for a second confused. Dean pulled him back down and slipped his tongue past Castiel’s open lips, and _oh_ this was what he’d wanted. Castiel’s hands moved of their own accord, sliding up under Dean’s shirt and pressing against the smooth planes of Dean’s stomach. He broke the kiss to slide Dean’s shirt off, then leaned back down.

Dean’s jaw was rough with stubble as Castiel’s nose slid against it. He kissed Dean’s chin, then down over his neck. He stilled finally, his lips over Dean’s pulse, just enjoying the feeling of Dean being alive.

A warm and pleasant feeling spread up from his toes and through his fingertips, and as Dean’s hands undid the laces that kept his shirt on over his damaged wings; it ignited from warmth to burning. He _wanted_ something, although he wasn’t quite sure what.

“You don’t look happy,” Dean said, his hands stopping where they had been moving up from the small of Castiel’s back.

“I am happy,” Castiel protested; wanting the warmth of Dean’s smooth palms and calloused fingers against his skin again.

“You’re frowning.”

“I…” Castiel paused and looked down at Dean. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admitted, and then rolled off Dean, landing gingerly on his side. He winced, just a little as his still sore wings were jostled.

To his surprise and embarrassment, Dean laughed.

Castiel shot up and slipped out of bed, his cheeks burning hot. He turned his back to Dean and grabbed his shirt from where it had landed on the floor. He was sliding it back on when he felt hands on his hips, turning him slowly around.

“I didn’t mean to laugh,” Dean said. “I just forgot you didn’t know…you seemed to be doing fine to me.”

Dean leaned in close then and fit his lips against the skin just below Castiel’s ear. The shudder that passed through Castiel’s body was involuntary, but not unpleasant. “I’ll show you what to do,” Dean said softly. Castiel let himself be guided back into the bed.

Dean’s hands were gentle as they slid off Castiel’s pants; his hands running over the angel’s thighs and making Castiel push up a little. He bit down on his lower lip when Dean’s hands found his shoulders, pushing gently back.

“Dean,” Castiel said softly, grabbing his wrists. “My wings…I can’t lie on them.”

When Dean shifted him, his hands felt strong and possessive. Castiel liked the way they felt, not stern, but confident and warm against the skin between his wings. He shuddered again as warmth and goose bumps spread up from the places Dean’s lips and hands touched.

“Come here,” Dean said softly, and he sat back again, pulling Castiel into his lap. Castiel followed, and this time, when Dean kissed him, it was a little more urgent.

Castiel had never been naked in front of anyone aside from Lucifer, but now, with Dean, he felt safe.

“Dean,” he said, and he thought that maybe this was home.

It was the last coherent thought Castiel had for a while.

~

Dean woke up the next morning with a naked angel sleeping on top of him. He was surprised to note that he didn’t think that this was a bad thing. He shifted out from under Castiel and looked him over. His face looked calm in sleep, with none of the worries Dean knew he had shouldered for his entire life.

Dean ran a hand through Castiel’s wings, and even in sleep the angel moved into the touch. They were looking better than they had. In the hours after Gabriel and Anael had collected them from the tower, Dean hadn’t let anyone touch Castiel. He had learned a lot about wings in those next few hours, especially about Castiel’s, as he cleaned the crusted blood off black feathers. Over his shoulder, Gabriel had instructed him on how to set the bones. Lucifer’s silver blade stayed enclosed in Dean’s fingers until he was certain that he would be the only one who touched Castiel’s bruised and tired body.

Three days had passed before Castiel had woken up. A week and three days had passed since Dean had arrived at the castle as a hero. He’d slept in the same bed as Castiel every night, but as he looked down at the sleeping angel now, he knew that everything was different. That wasn’t a bad thing anymore.

Sam was at the castle now, and Bobby. Sam had gotten all the tutors he could possibly want (Gabriel insisted on teaching him too, which annoyed Dean, but the angel had a decent sense of humor—and now Dean could blame someone else when Sam was being a little bitch). He was learning about things Dean had never even heard of, but he was happy. Dean knew that was what mattered in the end.

Castiel was a prince and he wasn’t going to send Dean away.

“Do you think Lucifer knew it would kill him?”

Castiel’s voice startled Dean out of his thoughts. He jumped a little bit and winced apologetically when the sharp movement of his hand jarred Castiel’s healing wings.

“Maybe,” Dean said. “But I don’t think so. He probably just hoped it would kill me.”

Castiel nodded and closed his eyes again. Dean knew that nothing was over. There was so much healing left to do, for everyone, but this was a good start.

Dean knew that Castiel had a home now. He was happy to say that he had his own home too.

As he drifted off back to sleep, with Castiel draped on top of him, Dean heard the angel whisper “Thank you.”

Dean wanted to ask what for, but he was too content and languid to open his mouth.

~

They say the prince came back and became a king. They say he brought a hero with him. They say the coward Gabriel was restored to grace, and the runner Anael found her peace. They say the homeless found a home; that demons fled from Heaven and Earth and spent the rest of their days in Hell.

They say that this was the beginning of peace and prosperity for a devastated world.

They say the story of the prince and his hero passed down through families with the strength and surety of blood. It was a story of love and of friendship, but mostly of family. They say that every detail is true, that no moment was left out. They say the dialogue is exactly as it was spoken on every single one of those fateful days.

They are right.

I know because I wrote it—every word. And I was there—every moment.

They call me the prophet Chuck, and what I wrote is now a Gospel.

But in those days I was just a chameleon.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2011 DCBB, which I had so much fun doing. The always wonderfull cafe-de-labeill did the art for this story, which you can find over [here](http://cafe-de-labeill.livejournal.com/41157.html#cutid1)! Please go and tell her how amazing it is, because it's so amazing. To my wonderful beta, thank you! You were fantastic to work with, and just great.


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